Bleach: Shattered Soul
by americancheeze
Summary: A re-imagining of the Bleach mythos featuring a new character with enigmatic powers. As the events of Bleach unfold, Rukia, Yoruichi, and Tatsuki find themselves entangled in the mystery of this power. Is its bearer a savior or a destroyer? Please R&R.
1. Chapter 1

Episode 1: Seeking and Meeting

I looked out over the city I would be stationed in for the next few weeks and recalled my orders, passed down through my captain, a good and honorable man by the name of Jushiro Ukitake. There was some kind of anomaly, a slight decrease in spirit energy in the town and it was my task to get to the bottom of it. Slight variations in the balance did happen occasionally, but when the gap is so quickly filled with corrupted souls, something we call hollows, it is something that needed to be looked into. Especially when those hollows didn't effect the amounts of souls passing on as they normally do. Sure enough the town felt strange, a weird vibe permeated the might air, as if the reishi was unstable somehow. That was most assuredly something unusual for the human world, or so I had been taught.

As a reaper of souls it was my duty to deal with not only stray spirits, but to protect the balance of both the living world and the afterlife. As I stood atop one of the poles that held up the web of power lines that spanned the city, I briefly pondered the human perspective on soul reapers like myself. It was astonishing that despite not being able to see or know of us, humans still had legends about us, calling us Grim Reapers or shinigami. I still laugh at that name to this day. Death gods huh? Well you stand in awe of what you cannot see and worship what you cannot explain.

My name is Rukia Kuchiki. If you expect some old man with a scythe or some dark and towering god-like being, I'm afraid you'd be a bit disappointed. In retrospect, few non-reapers have ever taken me seriously at first due to my appearance. Now that I'm a bit more more mature, I'm willing to admit that I have always been short, at the time looking more like a small teenager than a being that was nearly two centuries old. My hair as dark as night and kept short for efficiency, though I'd been told before that the style suits the slightly round shape of my face and that it made my rare smiles look all the better. I've also been told I'm attractive, but had never been called beautiful and wouldn't escape the title of "cute but overly serious" for quite a while. After all, soul reapers age very slowly, and slower as they got older and gained more spiritual power. The leader of all the soul reaper captains was ancient, vastly strong, and had not aged a day in so long that at least two of the three other oldest captains – who were each at least one thousand years old – had no idea of what he was like when he was young. They hadn't even heard stories of it as you normally would from a senior's peers in one's youth.

Suddenly, I detected something faint that jarred me from my thoughts, and then something else that felt a lot more powerful. A hollow had appeared in the living world, and I paused to try and discern it's intent, and possibly what that weird other sensation was. As I stood there and focused on the hollow, I sensed it move erratically, no souls grabbing its attention thankfully. It seemed to be wandering aimlessly through the city, unable to find whatever it wanted, before it departed to the space between worlds and both sensations vanished from my senses. The hollow probably had left to its world to regroup, but the other thing was an enigma. It didn't feel like a normal soul or a hollow, and hadn't tried to devour normal souls or go anywhere. It had only been detectable for the brief time the hollow was around. I sighed, realizing I'd have a hard time finding whatever it was without being able to detect it.

(A/N: I'm not going to bother repeating the events of episode one of the show here, At this point we cut to Ichigo dealing with the punks the next evening and the events follow that episode exactly, with Ichigo getting Rukia's powers and everything. The rest of this chapter picks up during the second episode)

_Yoruichi's Perspective_

The morning sun woke me from my sleep as it bathed me in its golden rays and warmed my fur. My stomach growled and I sighed at the sound. Normally, by conserving my spiritual power and staying in my cat form, I can avoiding needing to eat for incredibly long periods of time. However, my limit for that had seemingly been reached. Bounding towards a nearby fence and jumping onto it – with grace that would impress even other felines, I then studied the area around the abandoned lot I'd been sleeping in.

Based on the amount of activity on the roads, I'd actually slept a bit longer than I intended. There were already high school students on their way to school. It wasn't a problem though, I could just stay awake longer to compensate. The good thing about being a cat is you can operate fine at whatever time of day and still have good eyesight. I'd need it. Whatever was causing the unsettled atmosphere in the city seemed invisible to my spiritual senses, an amazing feat indeed. Anything alive, once alive, or from a spirit world should be detectable yet this thing was not in the least.

Whatever it was, I'd have to find it quickly. Such a disturbance would draw soul reapers to where my friend Kisuke, not to mention Tessai, had gone into hiding and set up shop. Even though most reapers used him as a means of getting supplies faster, he was still the only route they had to finding the ex-reapers that the Soul Society had actually marked for death. As goofy as Kisuke was, he wouldn't bat an eye about dying before betraying his friends. Especially considering the circumstances.

_"Kisuke, you fool, did you make this thing?"_ I thought to myself, then dismissed the theory, "_No, you're thick, but not that thick."_

I pondered stopping by his store and quickly decided against it. There was a soul reaper in town already, I could sense him clear as day. Even though that meant he wasn't part of the Punishment Force or of captain level there was still no need to draw too much attention. There was no telling if that reaper was good enough to tell who I was or not or what he would do if he discovered us. Not that I was afraid to fight anybody. Even after not fighting for a a century I was still the former commander of the very Punishment Force I was glad had not come. It would be a cold day in hell before I would loose to any single reaper.

I extended my spiritual senses, trying for a broad sweep of the area and noted several tiny spiritual pressures nearby, stray cats, like me I guess. Try as I might, it was like it had been every night since I came. I couldn't find the source of the problem. Perhaps hunger was weakening me more than I thought it was?

A tall human male, clearly foreign but dressed in the uniform of the local high school, walked down the street as professionally as a salary man off to work. He stuck out not only for being foreign, but his general appearance. In fact, he stuck out so much I was surprised I'd not noticed him sooner. A old fashioned beard slightly longer than stubble was on his face and his blond hair made it hard to tell from a distance the his head wasn't totally shaved bare. I'd seen a good many Caucasians in my life, but his build was different than the normal, somehow more animalistic but only slightly. I could instantly tell he could fight pretty well. His face, cold and expressionless, was completely unreadable. His eyes were were a different story, being a piercing gray color that seemed deep with sorrow and lacking focus. As much as he stuck out in Japan, it was clear he'd stick out anywhere he went. He was an isolated observer type, I'd seen a few of those in my time as well.

The nearby cats scattered to various hiding places, only the bare minimum of their faces visible so they could observe the passerby. It was then that something strange happened, something mildly unnerving, but not bad. His eyes changed, gaining focus, as his expressionless gaze searched the nearby foliage, as if he knew where they were. The suddenness and extent of the change in those eyes was jarring. They were so much more expressive than most. They seemed so deep and emotional that you could write a short story about them. So expressive that even though his face hadn't changed expression it seemed to be softer and kinder. He smiled ever so slightly, but the feel of it was so different than other smiles. He was barely smiling at all, but he seemed to almost give off a gentle aura of smile.

The teen knelt down, the strays all backing up a little but seeming to relax a great deal. He took out a bento form his bag and opened it. He set it before standing again, his expression returning to not being any expression. It was at that moment he happened to spot me there on the fence and those eyes of his betrayed something I could not identify. Confusion? Recognition? Amusement? It wasn't the same thing he'd had on his face when acknowledging the other cats. Looking straight into those eyes of his they seemed to become sharper, his focus keening as he studied me. It bore into my very being. I wanted to get a chill up my spine but my sub-conscious wasn't sure of whether to be afraid or comfortable with that look he was giving me. It was as if he was seeing everything about me, even things I didn't what to be seen. His intentions in such a look were unknowable, but I didn't feel any danger.

I'd only met one other man with a gaze that penetrating and that was Gin Ichimaru, but Gin's look was totally different. Ichimaru seemed to wrap you in coils like a snake, finding the most sensitive area and looming over it with fangs that dripped with venom. As I gazed into the cutting eyes of the foreigner, it felt more like someone reaching an open hand towards that weakness. You might think such a gesture would be less unnerving, and it is, but remember what a single hand is able to do. Hands can comfort and welcome, or just as easily destroy and reject.

It was that promise of kindness but the potential for pain, the unknowable intentions, that made it hard to know how to react to him. The exposing of a weakness is something you innately fear with every fiber of yourself. However deep down every soul wants someone to understand that dark point in them, accept it, and tell them it will be okay. Indeed, in a sense, this man was far more dangerous than Ichimaru. While both appeared to have a knack for reading people, Ichimaru made you want to fight while the strange American made you want to accept it. I would have probably trembled if I didn't want so badly to smile instead.

After all, as cutting and intense as his eyes were, there was no maliciousness in them. He bent back over, picked up a compartment out of the lunch box, and brought it over, holding it up to me with a warm smile as the expression in his eyes changed again to something soft and friendly. It was the expression you would have when seeing a dear friend, "Here."

I looked at him quizzically as a cat would and smelled the offered food. He'd brought me the meat from the bento, which was kept separate from the rest on most occasions. It was gently seasoned with herbs and spices, western style but with some Japanese influence. It occurred to me he probably made it himself in such case.

The combinations of flavors as I dug in seemed to cascade over my tongue. It was good! Not a master chef by any means and I'd had better, but the kid had serious potential to be a pro at cooking. It had something only food from those with talent for it truly had. The taste wasn't just taste, it was like an expression. An imperfect expression with a lot of room for improvement, but eating that meat was quite an experience none the less. If you don't understand, go eat somewhere where you can see the chef smiling as he works. You'll find such food there. In summary, that was good eating.

He waited until I'd had my fill and then took it away, scratching my neck right near the jaw and then a bit near the ear. It felt damn nice... damn nice. He knew cats well, and liked them a lot apparently. His kind and tender act assured me I'd just been being paranoid. The person was so nice after all, hardly someone to feel any aversion to. He probably just thought I was strange for not hiding like the other strays. I'd been studying him pretty intently too, something cats only did to prey or predators. I hadn't looked at him like he was either, so naturally a cat lover would be perplexed and look at me strangely.

He set the leftovers from my meal back in the box and waved to me as he left, "See you some other time, old timer."

Huh? Old timer? But my cat form was very young looking. What the hell...? He knew I was older than I seemed? My senses sharpened, but as he rounded the corner and left my sight he might as while have not even been on the same planet anymore. It made no sense. Every human, living or dead, hollow or plus, has at least a tiny amount of spiritual pressure that an expert like myself could sense at that range.

But I couldn't detect the boy at all. I'd probably found it, the source of the anomaly. A boy with intense eyes that loved animals enough to give them his lunch, affecting the balance of spiritual pressure in an entire city? I sighed at gave chase, careful to stay unseen at the tops of buildings. Things were going to be complicated, I was experienced enough to tell that much.

_Rukia's Perspective_

I yawned a bit as I made my way to the school I'd be attending, still tired from a long night of, among other things, kicking myself mentally for messing up the slaying of a hollow so badly that I had to give all my powers to a hot-headed high school boy to save not only his life and my own, but his entire family as well. At least I seemed to have found a hint as to what might be causing the disruption the the reishi of the city. However, there was a piece missing. It was clear that Ichigo Kurosaki's huge spirit energy level was helping to cause the problem. After all, huge concentrations of power like that tend to do weird things to the world of the living. Unfortunately, there was no way he was the only part of the anomaly. Ichigo had no means of affecting the flow of spirits into the Soul Society, at least not until taking my powers, and having a lot of spiritual energy would simply make the area have more hollows than normal. High spiritual power wouldn't cause it to go up and down.

Stretching, I cursed the gigai I was stuck in for the time being. Having to pose as a student so I could watch over Ichigo was a pain and the fact that I wasn't used to the stiffness and awkwardness of an artificial body compounded that fact. Something told me my substitute wouldn't appreciate my efforts either. Speaking of Ichigo, I'd have to take him aside and give him the primer for soul reaping and make sure he understood his duties, even though they were only temporary. Thankfully, however, I had time to settle in and prepare since he still had to deal with the aftermath of the hollow attack on his home the previous night. There were some things that modifying the memories of his family and healing their injuries didn't fix, mainly the damage to the house and all the debris.

In something called 'homeroom' – which was apparently the first class of the day, during which attendance was taken – the teacher stood me up in front of the class and introduced me, "Class, we have another transfer student, this one from an adjacent prefecture. Make sure you give her a warm welcome and treat her well." he turned to me, "Go ahead and introduce yourself Ms. Kuchiki."

I admit to feeling a bit embarrassed. There were a lot of boys staring at me and grinning and I wasn't sure why at the time. I guess I was so stuck in the frame of mind that they were all much younger than me that I didn't realize I actually looked within an age they could date, "How do you do?" I said in the cutest voice I could muster while trying to look as friendly as I could. I even curtsied, but only slightly, my thinking being that a full on one would seem too much, "I'm Rukia Kuchiki, please take good care of me." There, a typical Japanese greeting. Surely that was right. The girls were looking at me strangely but it seemed more curious than anything. Most of the boys were acting oddly excited.

The teacher smiled, "Okay, let's see, take the empty set behind William Marks."

Odd... that was a foreign name. I could see a really huge person that didn't seem at all like a high school student, but he was half-Spanish or Mexican, not the typical nationality to be named William or have the last name of Marks. There was no free seat behind him either.

"Right there." the teacher said, pointing.

I followed the gesture to an empty seat behind an American I'd somehow overlooked. Strange, he was taller than anyone else in the room by nearly a full head – except the Mexican boy, who was by far the largest being in the room. He even had a shaved head and short facial hair. How had I missed him? I smiled and nodded to the teacher and walked over, meeting the American's cold gray eyes, which turned out to be a mistake as I nearly stopped and froze right there.

He was looking at me with no expression, but his eyes were so intent and penetrating I almost shook out of my gigai. My mind raced. His expression was so cutting I was sure that somehow he knew what I really was. I was relieved when he went back to the sketchbook on his desk, flipping to a new page and starting on something else. That look had reminded me of a man in the Soul Society I didn't care for one bit. It was the kind of look that saw everything, worn only by the kind of person that could get inside your head and rip you to pieces. Unnerving yes, but he didn't really seem anywhere near as intimidating as Captain Ichimaru. But then again that made sense, Marks was just a human after all, Captain Ichimaru was a demonic snake taking on the shape of a man. At least that had always been my impression.

It wasn't until lunchtime that I saw Ichigo arriving. My luck had apparently improved since the night before as I saw him in time to make sure he didn't spot me. I wanted to make the first approach and try to minimize any scene he would make, so I made myself blend into the background and wrote a warning for him on my hand. As pure coincidence would have it, his seat was the one next to mine. I watched and observed him from my spot in the background, waiting for the right time to approach. I'd have to time it right as he was chatting with a small group of friends, including the huge Mexican teen whose name I learned was Chad.

I glanced around as I waited and spotted that strange American standing near a pair of girls, one athletic-looking with short and wild hair and the other being overly bubbly with orange hair and even easier to notice breasts.

He seemed more interested in the athletic one though, barely even looking at the busty one as he talked, "So, you won the regional tournament. Just what I expected from you, Tatsuki."

"Yeah, your senpai dominated!" she grinned, flexing a muscle, "Couldn't exactly lose after beating you so badly last week, you'd get even more mopey."

"I'm not mopey. I just have a very neutral expression by default. Like Ichigo looks grumpy all the time even when he isn't."

'Tatsuki' and the bubbly girl took out there lunches and got ready, the sporty girl looking at Marks and frowning, "You forgot your lunch again didn't you?"

"Something like that." he scratched the back of his head and grinned awkwardly in embarrassment.

Bubbly girl spoke up with a huger grin than any I had ever seen, "You can share some of mine! I brought peanut butter fish fry today."

"Peanut butter and fish?" Tatsuki made a face, "How can you eat that stuff. You have the strangest taste, Orihime."

The girl named Orihime served up half of the weird combination on the lid of the container it had been in, "Markun doesn't seem to think so."

"That perplexes me even more. I know that stereotype about Americans liking cheese on everything, but this is just weird." Tatsuki shook her head, "I don't see how you eat like that either, Will."

Apparently the girls called him different things. Markun was probably a combination of his last name and the -kun honorific. Informal formality? This 'Orihime' was full of strange mixes.

Brushing the unneeded information aside I walked over to Ichigo, "Excuse me. You're Ichigo Kurosaki right? I'll be sitting next to you in class from now on. My name is Rukia."

Ichigo turned, then shot to his feet in shock, "What? YOU!"

Chad seemed confused, "What's up, Ichigo? Do you two know each other?"

If I hadn't been so pre-occupied with Ichigo, I would have probably noticed the American's cutting gaze snap over to study Ichigo's reaction. But I didn't, "Of course not, we've just met. Isn't that right, Kurosaki-kun?"

"Um...right."

One of his other friends spoke up with an excited grin, "Rukia's a brand new transfer student."

Another smiling face, "Nice to meet ya!"

I smiled and was about to show Ichigo the message under the guise of a handshake when I was startled from behind, "Yeah, nice to meet you."

I jumped and turned around to see the American standing behind me. When had he gotten there? He was supposed to be eating with those two girls! One of Ichigo's friends, the most energetic-seeming, chuckled, "Man, Billy you should really stop doing that to people. You'll kill someone one of these days."

The other one I didn't know spoke up, "Don't mind him, he's just freakishly quiet and really intense. I don't see how he and Chad are so sneaky and so big at the same time."

Billy smiled slightly, though his eyes were as intense as they were before, as if he were trying to see into my soul, "Sorry, I can't help it. I'm William Marks by the way, exchange student from the United States. Some call me Billy, some Will, and Orihime kinda nicknamed me Markun, so take your pick. I'm not the formal type." His words were friendly but his eyes seemed to be accusing me of lying. I wasn't sure if it was more unsettling that he seemed to see right through me, or that I couldn't read him myself. Was he nice or scary? Why was a human unsettling me so much?

He offered a hand shake, thankfully not so I would have to shake with my message hand. Ichigo was still tense and looking confused so a quickly went to shake his hand and showed him the message, "Make a scene and I'll kill you." I was certain Billy had not seen it.

The American reached out and flicked the distracted teen on the forehead, snapping him out of his frozen state, "Hey, Kurosaki-kun, you act like you've bumped into a psychotic ex-girlfriend or something."

"Ow. Of course not don't be stupid." was the reply. Ichigo was keeping calm, probably waiting until he had the chance to pull me aside and confront me.

"Well, pleasantries aside, I'm going to pass on lunch with you guys today." Marks stated simply, getting to the business he'd probably come over for.

Excitable friend laughed, "Forget your lunch again?"

"Something like that. Orihime offered to share hers again."

Excitable friend smiled, "I think you just use that as an excuse to get near your precious 'Tatsuki-senpai'. I mean, you talk to her twice as much as any of us."

Billy wasn't amused, but he smiled and went a little red with embarrassment. My uneasiness seemed to lift. He was normal after all, "Hey that's none of your business, Keigo. And I mean both my love life and my fighting ability."

"Ah so you admit it!"

"I do not."

The goofy teen wouldn't listen, "The burning passion for the rough and tough tomboy. The unattainable one, the-"

"Shut up." other friend said with an amused grin that didn't match his tone. It spoke volumes, the he was trying to covertly tell 'Keigo' that he wasn't being funny.

"Well anyway," Keigo frowned, then was right back to whimsy, "I never understood your crush, most pine after the luscious Orihime. I mean those-"

Marks frowned, "Watch it, Keigo. You're in mixed company."

Keigo had apparently forgotten I was there, "Oh! Sorry, Rukia! I kinda got carried away. You probably feel left out!"

"Oh no! I said, grinning with fake embarrassment, "It's fine. Conversations go where they will."

"But its my fault, taking all the attention. Tell us about yourself."

"Oh, I'm not that interesting."

"Sure you are. Everyone's interesting." Marks noted and smiled, those piercing eyes of his on me again, "Well, except Keigo, he's just annoying."

"Hey!" Keigo protested.

"I'm kidding." he lied, "Anyway, what's yourstory. You come from money?"

"Hm?" How would he know that I was from a noble house in the Souls Society?

The teen clarified, "Your perfume. I've been around a lot of girls and never smelled that. Oh wait, that sounds creepy..."

I smiled. Inside my head though I was analyzing everything the strange man was saying. What was he saying? I wasn't wearing perfume at all. "It's fine, and thank you for the compliment, as strange as it came out. I do come from a fairly well off family, but I really don't live all that extravagantly myself."

Keigo seemed annoyed, "Hey, back it up man, you can't hog her to yourself. You've got Tatsuki."

"I'm doing no such thing.... and no I don't." back to me, "Nice meeting you anyway, I've gotta go."

I excused myself and observed the activity from afar. He turned to Chad and confirmed plans he and the huge teen had made to meet somewhere after he got out of karate club. Apparently he hadn't heard about the 'truck slamming into Ichigo's house' and invited him along. Of course the offer was refused and Ichigo turned down Marks' offer to help clean almost before telling him the reason he couldn't come. It seemed the three of them were closer to each other than the rest, Marks and Chad making up what could be called Ichigo's 'inner circle'. Even social groups in the Soul Society had those.

It was normal high school stuff. Marks seemed perfectly normal really. He didn't press the issue I'd suspected he had with me. The teen just went back to the girls to eat with them after getting done with his business and Ichigo's group went off somewhere else to eat. I would have followed, but I dare not bring too much attention to myself on the first day. After all, I'd have to be there a while.

_Yoruichi's Perspective_

I'd risked that visit to Kisuke's shop after losing track of the American in the high school. With no means of detecting him other than my mundane senses, and the guy's uncanny knack for being easy to overlook, I couldn't possibly pin point him in the middle of so many other souls. Before I left however, I did discover another bit of interesting information that I ended up asking Kisuke about.

There was a female soul reaper in the school, barely detectable and even then only at close range. She'd lost her strength apparently and was recovering from whatever had caused it in a gigai that I recognized as one of Kisuke's. She wasn't the soul reaper I'd sensed from far away, that was certain. The reaper I had sensed before had far higher spirit energy.

Regardless, even powerless, she was in the same school as that boy who seemed to be the anomaly. While this could mean they would be leaving sooner, I didn't want them jumping the gun and killing him. The Soul Society tended to be a bit short-sighted. Actually that's not quite right. It was more that they were far-sighted, so much so that they had trouble seeing what was directly in front of them. Even though this person was a nice guy, not a visible speck of bad intentions in him, all they would probably see is that he was causing a problem.

So it was with a good amount of speed that I returned to find the strange human when school was about to end. Kisuke had no idea about the strange person, asking me to report anything I found out so he could try and figure it out. Concerning the female reaper, Rukia Kuchiki had given her powers to a young boy who could see spirits named Ichigo Kurosaki. Kisuke was taking full advantage of the situation of course and was watching the pair very closely.

I spotted the very two people in question walking out of the school together. They were completely unaware that the American was following them, but I managed to see him. Whatever his reasons, the American was keeping to corners and alleys, doing a very good job of looking casual about it. Perhaps he'd come to suspect something, perhaps he was going to attack the two reapers. I wasn't sure, but I kept my eyes fixed on the situation.

Ichigo turned and confronted Rukia as the two of them arrived at a side street few people would be at during that time of the day, "Alright, you freaky little nut job, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

Oh, the hot-blooded type? This could be entertaining given Kuchiki's personality.

"Oh, how scary, you big brute!" she replied with a mischievous grin, enjoying the chance to tease, "Jeepers! You aren't gonna hurt me are you?"

I knew it! By sheer chance she'd been forced to rely on a human that would turn their partnership into a comedy duo. I had to wonder who would end up being the straight man and who would be the fool in the long run. The really good duos could change back and forth depending on topic.

Ichigo was far from amused, "First of all, you can knock it off with that goody two-shoes act alright?"

"Well I think it's pretty good considering I learned it over night."

"Alright forget it. Just tell me what you're doing here now anyway. Weren't you supposed to be heading back to your 'Soul Society' or whatever it was?" he replied with annoyance.

She frowned, "I can't. Only soul reapers can enter the Soul Society and last night you took nearly all of my powers."

Crap, they'd gotten serious. Anyway, my amusement aside I worried about the direction the conversation was going. They didn't know that strange foreigner was listening in and were revealing everything. Not that anyone would believe him, but still.

"Well, I wouldn't know anything about that."

Annoyed, she sighed and looked o the ground, "I was in the middle of a mission you know. Now thanks to you I'm stuck in this ridiculous gigai form."

"What's a gigai?"

She point to herself, "A temporary body used used in emergencies. When a soul reaper is drastically weakened they reside inside of a gigai until their powers return."

Something dawned on Ichigo, pieces fit together, "So that explains why everyone was able to see you back there. Right?"

"Exactly." She suddenly got a determined look, "In short, until my powers return, I'm going to half to rely on you to fulfill my duties as a soul reaper."

"Huh?"

"It's only natural, you have all the powers of a soul reaper now. You have no right to refuse your-"

"No way!" the boy replied loudly, accentuating the fact by crossing his arms in front of him." There's no way in hell I'm fighting monsters like that again."

That was not the response Rukia Kuchiki had expected, "Come on, you did just fine last night."

"That was just because my family's lives were in danger. It's not like I'm ready to go fight for complete strangers or anything."

"But this is bigger than just your family!"

"Sorry to disappoint you." Ichigo turned and walked away, heading in the direction of his house.

"Guess there's no other choice then." Rukia said, glaring at him as she slipped on a red glove emblazoned with a flaming skull, "Hey."

"What?" He turned, only to see Rukia close the distance far too fast for a normal girl and send her gloved hand through his head, pushing his soul from his body.

The American looked like he was about to rush in, a concerned look on his face making it clear he was just a curious friend of Ichigo's. At first I wasn't sure if he could see Ichigo in his soul form or not, but he didn't seem to be able to. Why then was he not running to the limp body of his friend? What was with that distant look that seemed to be searching for something?

Rukia roped Ichigo to a playground and I watched as the foreigner hid nearby. I watched closely at the events that followed. It was good that I did, because something important happened. He flinched suddenly for no visible reason, grabbing the side of his head as if suddenly dizzy. An instant later I sensed a hollow enter the world of the living nearby and, more strangely, could sense him. Just before the hollow had appeared he might as well have been the bush he was hiding in. The very instant that hollow came, he was detectable. However, he didn't feel like a human, hollow, or even a reaper. I allowed myself to see the spirit ribbons that were manifestations of the energy of all things. It should have helped but it didn't. He had no ribbon. He had no spirit energy, even when could sense him. What was that feeling? Whatever it was, Rukia and Ichigo were about to be distracted before they could notice it.

As the hollow homed in on the spirit that was 'living' in the playground, I observed the strange human's reactions to the event. From his expressions, it was clear he couldn't see spirit beings, but it was very obvious that he knew they were there. Confusion at the explosion of a play area rather than fear of the appearing monster, then recognition, concern, and building fear. He could the ghost of a little boy being chased by something bad, but he didn't act. His body twitched if he wanted to, but hearing Rukia trying to goad Ichigo into committing to his duties, the foreigner backed off, perhaps sensing his friend and knowing he would do the right thing.

One hollow slaying later, I could no longer sense the foreigner. The sensation he'd emitted was gone with the creature. Kisuke would have a field day with that. Did he have a link of some kind to hollows? My eyes didn't leave him as he stared in the general direction of Ichigo performing a konso to send the boy to the Soul Society. He seemed to relax then, but didn't seem totally sure of what was going on. I couldn't tell exactly what was running through his head as he turned and left, but any sense of alarm or concern had passed. The two soul reapers had been discovered and didn't even know it. Not that it mattered, as I said no one would believe him.

I kept tailing him as he made his way back to school and towards the gymnasium. An athletic looking girl in karate gear was taking a break and spotted him. She complained about him being late again. She called him 'Will', he called her 'Tatsuki'. This Tatsuki person had a bit more spiritual energy than the average person, but not much. It was enough to make me think she could have the potential to be a soul reaper when she died (Whether a talented one or not was debatable). The two of them seemed pretty close, but not dating... not yet at least. The two of them seemed to mesh well enough to be a couple. Then again, compatibility didn't always equal romance.

It was strange how normal the guy was, given how abnormal he really was. Even just in the sense he was actually so totally fine with what he'd just seen and sensed. If I didn't know he knew, I'd think he didn't just find out about soul reapers.

_Tatsuki's Perspective_

"Hey, Will! You're late again! You'll never get anywhere without committing yourself to it."

My foreign friend seemed distracted but tossed whatever was bothering aside and looked over to where I was standing, "Waiting for me? I'm touched. I had no idea you cared."

"Oh shut up." I threw my sweaty towel at him, striking him directly in the face, "I was just taking a break."

He took the cloth away from his face laughing, again being strange. I'd done that to others for annoying me and they were grossed out. I had to wonder if I was a magnet for people who thought differently than anyone else. "But Tatsuki-senpai, you always take a break around the corner so you can be alone. You hate looking at people when you rest."

If I still had my towel I'd have thrown it at him, so instead he'd have to deal with my water bottle bouncing of his forehead, "Take that, smart guy!"

"Ow! That nearly hurt." Will chuckled, rubbing his forehead.

"Next time I'll throw harder!" I joked, sending a devilish grin his way, "Maybe it'll get you coming on time!"

"I've only been late a few times." he walked over and leaned on the wall next to me, handing my water bottle back to me, "I'm as committed as I need to be. Belts don't really matter much to me."

"Why not? Don't you wanna prove to everyone you're the strongest? There's a lot of appeal in being the best. At least to most people."

He put on a gag sage face, "Ah, young grasshopper, the truly strong do not need to show their power and the true warrior seeks to never need to lift his weapon."

"You watch too many kung-fu movies."

"Your collection is twice the size of mine."

"That's beside the point." I replied, then froze and raised an eyebrow in confusion, "Wait, you've never been to my house. How do you know how big it is?"

"You just told me. Ha-Ha-Ha!" my water bottle collided with his head again, "Ow!"

"That'll teach you." I pouted. Will could be so annoying sometimes. "And gimme my towel back."

He picked up his hand, and looked at the towel in it with mild amusement, "Oh! Didn't even realize I still had it. Here you go."

Suddenly, the coach called out, "Tatsuki, break's over! And tell that lazy bum William Marks to get in here and get changed!"

"Yes, sir!" I turned to my friend, "You heard him, come on."

He looked up as if snapping out of a daze, "Yeah..., I'll be in soon. Gimme a minute."

"What's got you so distracted?"

Will shook his head, "It's nothing. I'm just in a strange mood I guess."

"It's Orihime's cooking. You keep eating like her and you'll start thinking like her."

He laughed, "Considering her grades, that might not be bad."

"One ditsy genius is enough for me thanks." I flashed a grin and headed in, "Hurry up now so I can kick your butt again."

"Ha-ha, sure thing."

At the time I had no way to know that the series of events that would change my life forever had begun. I didn't see Will look up to a nearby roof with those knowing eyes of his and see a cat that was more than it seemed. I didn't know how his own life was about to change far more than mine would. No, in hindsight perhaps the changes had started months ago, when Will first arrived.

Next Chapter: Asking and Discovering

Preview:

The mysterious exchange student William Marks has discovered the existence of Soul Reapers, but his true nature remains unknown. Who is he? How did he come to be friends with Ichigo, Chad, and Tatsuki? What started the anomaly that has drawn the attention of the Soul Society. With hollows targeting Ichigo for his high spiritual pressure, what will happen when they get personal and Tatsuki gets caught in the crossfire? Has Yoruichi been discovered? All this and a bit more next chapter.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Since event in this story start to overlap the show, talking about stuff going on while the events of the show were elsewhere, to fully get the entire story it's best to have seen the show as well. But let's be honest, you wouldn't be reading fan fiction if you hadn't even watched this far into the series. Also I apologize for the perspective jumping around so much in this, I promise it won't jump around so much in future chapters.

Episode 2: Asking and Discovering

_Yoruichi's Perspective_

I slipped, no I don't mean I lost my footing and fell from the building I was perched on. I was so preoccupied with observing and trying to figure out the young man, that when he looked up in my direction I was spotted. In any other case it wouldn't be a problem, but those eyes – those deep and intense eyes – could surely see right through my feline disguise. Marks knew of Soul Reapers and Hollows, could sense them even if he couldn't see them. He knew I was far older than a regular cat. Also, due to my mistake, he probably knew I was following him around.

Marks hadn't known about reapers that morning when we first met, I was fairly certain of that. Whatever he sensed from me that revealed my longevity probably confused him then, but with those eyes and that knowledge... he could probably guess what I once was and technically still was biologically. I stared down at him, he smiled so slightly it was nearly invisible, then it left as he went deep into his own thoughts. What was he thinking damn it all?

"Marks, get your butt in here now!" the instructor shouted from inside the gym.

The boy in question stood upright and made for the door, "Right, sir, sorry."

Then he was gone, lost among the other souls in the club with him. It wouldn't take long, I didn't have time to go report to Kisuke. I dare not lose track of him completely, not until I knew for certain what he was going to do with his recently acquired knowledge and even then not until I knew where he lived. This guy... something told me that in the countless ages that the Soul Society had existed, no one had seen anything like him. There was more, something I'd missed or didn't yet know. Something that would change everything. I could feel it in my little kitty bones.

* * *

_Rukia's Perspective_

I looked on in amusement as Ichigo hid behind a light pole. The street back to where we had left his body had suddenly become busy and the ignorant fool had no idea he was invisible to most people, "What are you doing?" I asked in a low voice, even though I knew.

"Are you crazy? Do you think I want anybody seeing me dressed like this?"

"Soul Reapers are spirit beings, like regular spirits and hollows. Don't you remember? Even if you don't accept your duties you are a soul reaper none the less. Most people can't see you in that form, only other spirit beings."

"Oh, right..." the teen went slightly red, kicking himself mentally for doing something that, in hindsight, was rather thick of him.

"Anyway," I breached a new topic, "Now's a good time to fill you in on the situation."

"Situation?"

"Yes, the main reason I came to the world of the living in the first place." a businessman passed close by so I fell silent for a moment until he was out of earshot, "Every location, even in this world, has a flow of reishi, or spirit energy. According to my briefing, this town has had a high level of reishi for quite a while, but about four months ago the flow became irregular." If I hadn't been walking in front of him, I would have noticed Ichigo's face twitch as he remembered something, "It wasn't anything that went beyond the normal shifts, even though high reishi areas are usually very stable compared to others. It wasn't until a week ago that the anomaly became noteworthy. The readings are sometimes higher, other times much lower than normal."

I turned, narrowly missing the worried look on his face, instead he'd donned a mask of indifference, "So what does that have to do with me? I don't know about any of that stuff."

"You're half the issue."

"Huh? I am?"

"Yes, you're high spirit energy is probably the cause of the recent spikes. What ever happened to expose your power probably happened some time this week, and since the other abnormality started at the same time, it's entirely likely you are my best chance at finding it." to accent my point, I took a step forward, "Ichigo, how long have you been able to see spirits?"

"Huh? My whole life pretty much."

"Interesting. Have you been seeing them more often lately?"

"Yeah. I guess you're telling me that's because of whatever exposed me? And whatever did it is responsible for those hollows coming after me?"

"Exactly. Can you think of anything? Anything at all that might have done it? Strange spirits, odd feelings?"

He turned and awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. I assumed he was thinking about it, but in fact he already figured it out. The only thing he was pondering was whether or not to tell me. "Even if I could remember something like that, how would you fix it?"

"Send it to Soul Society of course, or whatever else needs to be done. It can't just be left alone, we have to deal with it."

"Huh. Makes sense I guess. I can't really think of anything in particular though."

I turned, this was important, surely he had to remember something major like that? "Nothing at all?"

"That's what I said isn't it?" Ichigo snapped back at me, "If your going to ask a question pay attention to my answer."

"No need to be so snippy. I had to make sure. It's just weird that something like that could happen so inconspicuously."

He sighed, "Well, it must have because I don't remember anything strange happening." The teen looked to his feet and walked past me.

_Tatsuki's Perspective_

"Hey, Will, get over here! You're the only one not scared of me." I shouted as he came out from the locker area in his gear.

He grinned that grin he always has before a snide remark so I braced myself, "Oh, I'm scared of you too, Tatsuki, I'm just too stupid to say no."

I waited for him to take his stance, the same basic stance he always used, and I took on a cat stance, most of my weight on the ball of the foot on the rear leg so I could shift and rotate. Pieces clicked in his mind like they always did and he adjusted the placement of his weight. Though basic, I had to admit his stance was versatile. True to his personality I guess. The guy had never bothered remembering half the stuff he was taught in class, which explained his belt rank, but he could actually out-fight most of the black belts through his uncanny knack for reading and analyzing moves. I did usually beat the crap out of him, even though I knew that he never tried to win.

I snapped forward with a front kick, full speed, aimed at his head. He had read my stance and simply shifted back slightly and tapped my foot. The shift was just evasion, it was the that little tap you had to worry about. If you didn't know the trick you'd end up far more off-balance than you'd think. Just that little bitty tap totally shifted the way the kick moved both during and after the point at which it would have struck. I'd had that trick used on me in previous spars so I knew it. Shifting my weight a bit I rotated on my other foot and pulled back my attacking limb, spinning around for a crescent kick. The tap redirection could be used to add velocity to the rotation and amplify the kick. Unfortunately, my opponent knew that reversal to his counter as well and the spinning kick was simply shut down with two palms placed at key points, 'catching' my kick in such a way that it lost almost every single ounce of momentum.

"No fair, that's not karate." I smiled with fake protest in my voice. I moved into a stance better suited for punches. After all the cat stance was a kicking stance.

Will adjusted himself accordingly. An amateur would only think he moved his hands, but different muscles were tightened, his weight was balanced differently, and he'd leaned almost undetectably forward, he smirked, "Hey, it's not my fault you can't kick fast enough to hit me."

"Funny." my eyes narrowed, "Remind me to punch your lights out."

My attempts at hitting him faired much better with my hands. Even though he did block or redirect a good many of them, I did score a few points off of him. They were all body shots though, not really effective against a guy built like Will, especially since I wasn't actually going full power. Though to my own chagrin he wasn't even really trying to win the spar. Like usual he hadn't tried to attack me at all.

"You know I punch that bag over there, fight back or there's no point."

He chuckled, "I can't."

"Why not? I can tell I'm not pushing you all that hard, I'm not even going all out here."

There was that smile of his, that little smile that somehow seemed bigger than it was, "I can't bring myself to raise a hand against you."

"Huh?" What the hell... was he saying he...?

"You're too cuddly. I almost can't resist pinching your cheeks and doing baby talk."

Gritting my teeth I swung at him hard, "Why you arrogant little-"

Suddenly I was on my back after he redirected my attack and turned it into a shoulder throw. He looked down at me and grinned mischievously, "The wise warrior always strikes with a clear head."

"I'm going to kill you."

"Oh?" he taunted playfully, "From that position? This I have to see."

_Yoruichi's Perspective_

I was observing the strange teenager as he sparred with his female friend, Tatsuki I believe, and noting his sharp defensive skills. He really hadn't seemed like a fighter to me, even though he was built for it, but despite my impressions the guy was clearly above the average human in skill. The simple fact he was able to somewhat easily redirect so many of the punches coming from someone who was not an amateur spoke volumes. The style of redirect he used (slapping the attack off course by a inch and moving around it to the outside) wouldn't usually work against an expertly thrown punch. Normally there'd be too much force. To do it anyway requires very precise positioning of the hands.

He was a very surgical fighter, a counter specialist most likely. He had to be to do it that way. I'd seen fighters like him back when I was leader of the Stealth Force. Sure he was nowhere near the level of a soul reaper with well-rounded hand-to-hand skills, but Billy was well above normal. It was those knowing eyes, I was sure of it. He could read people at a level I'd rarely seen, even in reapers. Any fighter who could read people like that would of course be formidable.

The large teen taunted his sparring partner and flipped her over with a relatively simple throw when she retaliated. Something else was said and shortly thereafter he was sent flying through the front window of the gym. Even outside the building I could hear his partner shouting at him, "YOU JERK! GET BACK IN HERE SO I CAN KICK YOUR BUTT AGAIN!"

It was like a scene out of one of those anime shows Kisuke was secretly fond of. I'd learned something important however from watching his spar. This guy couldn't raise a hand against a friend. It was obvious he could fight well enough to hold his own against his partner, but it was equally obvious that he wasn't the type that could bring himself to throw a punch against her. I had to wonder if he was entirely incapable of violence, but considering his level, I doubted it.

_Rukia's Perspective, the Next Day_

"Hey what's the big idea?"

Ichigo, snatching the book I was reading from away from me, gritted his teeth in annoyance before speaking, "I should be asking you that? Stop shouting!"

"I'm just practicing my modern Japanese."

"Well you're off by few centuries!" The carrot-top rolled his eyes, "How long do you plan on following me anyway?"

"Until you agree to help me with my mission and fill in for me as Karakura's soul reaper."

"I keep telling you that ain't happening!"

I couldn't really see why Ichigo was resisting. His natural skill was ridiculous, so it seemed only natural he act as a soul reaper. The konso he performed the day before, his first, had been truly beautiful. Not that his words to the small boy were particularly moving, it was the konso itself that impressed. Some soul reapers far older than me couldn't do a konso that shone that brightly or went that smoothly. In required either practice or natural flair, so much so that some reapers considered the konso a form of artistic expression.

My thoughts on the matter were broken into when the screeching of a car's tire pulled our attention to the street we'd just turned off of to a blue SUV that was pulling away. Ichigo was the first to spot the girl collapsed on the street and ran to see if she was okay. "Hey! Inoue!"

The girl, who had been struggling to get up, shot to attention suddenly, a surprised and slightly sacred look on her face. To put it more simply, a startled look. Apparently she had not expected Ichigo, "Kurosaki-kun?!"

"Did you just get hit?"

She thought about it for a second, calming a little, "Uh, yeah, probably."

"Probably?" Ichigo replied, raising an eyebrow, "Are you alright?"

The girl got to her feet and went into what I would later secretly call 'super-bubbly mode' doing all sorts of weird things with her hands and arms as she grinned wide and talked more quickly than used, "Yes! It was just a little bump on the head! I fine! Totally revived! One hundred percent!"

"One hundred percent? What about the car?"

Super-bubbly was suddenly over and the girl looked down the road and pointed sheepishly, "It drove away."

"Drove away?"

She bowed a little, "I'm sorry."

Ichigo was taken aback at the ridiculous apology, "Um... well... it's good you're not hurt."

It was then that the strange girl spotted me, "Huh? Kuchiki-san?"

"Who the hell are you?" was my, in retrospect, quite stupid reply.

Ichigo whipped around and whispered, "You idiot! She's Inoue! Orihime Inoue! She's in our class!"

Oops. Going into cute mode I curtsied and smiled wide, "Ah, you're looking quite well, Inoue-san!"

She seemed a little surprised, or maybe amused, and returned the motion, "You're looking well too."

"Were you doing some shopping?"

Orihime gasped and rushed over to her bag, "Oh yeah! Dinner!" checking them she smiled wide, showing off one of her veggies with pride for some reason, "Ah! My green onion, butter, banana, and sweet bean jelly are all unharmed!"

While Ichigo stood dumbfounded a the list of ingredients, I spotted something alarming, a bruise on her leg in the shape of a large hand. "What's that bruise on your leg?"

Orihime looked down, confused, "Uh? Oh, it must have happened just now."

Ichigo looked at the huge thing and winced in sympathy, "Looks terrible, it must hurt."

"A little, but I'm fine."

"Are you sure? Do you want me to walk you home?"

The girl became tense suddenly, waving goodbye as if brushing away the notion, she was blushing faintly, "No, that's okay. I don't live far. Bye!"

On that note she ran off and we watched her disappear from our sight, Ichigo was saying saying about worrying about her sometimes but I was too occupied thinking about that mark on her leg. There was no mistaking it for anything else. It was definitely a mark left by a hollow.

_Tatsuki's Perspective_

Will had been about to knock on my front door when I opened it and we were both taken by surprise. He seemed a bit uncomfortable being at my house, but offered a small smile regardless, "Oh hi. I guess I found the place."

I nodded and smiled back, holding up the large bowl of stew I was carrying over to Orihime's. "I usually head over to Orihime's at dinner to make sure she eats some normal food, so you get to find out where both of us live."

"Ah." He replied clearly not much at all caring about that.

I felt a little bad when I again spotted the bandage over his right eye and remembered the stitches he'd had to get after I threw him through that window the previous day. Pointing at the wound I apologized again. "Sorry about that."

He chuckled, "Don't worry about it. The first apology and the dinner invite were more than enough to make up for it. You want me to carry that bowl for you?"

"Nah, I got it." I answered, starting down the walkway.

I found myself a little embarrassed and annoyed at the same time. Ever since I'd met him, heck it was the _way_ I met him, Will was always trying to take care of me. It ticked me off a little, even though I knew he didn't mean to insinuate I needed it. He was kinda like Ichigo was sometimes, always looking out for his friends. During the short walk to Orihime's, I started looking back on our first meeting, even though it's kinda strange that I was reminiscing about something that had only happened a few months before.

I was fighting some of the lowest scum in the world, at least my opinion, and doing pretty good if I do say so myself. This was the really low kinda scum that go against everything I value about martial arts. Yep. They were martial artists, if you can call slime that learns the stuff just to exploit it martial artists. They were delinquents that had been harassing high school girls in the adjacent town and recently started hanging around at our school, and bringing in people from our school.

None of them could fight particularly well really, green belt at best, but they were good enough to keep me on my toes with their numbers. One of them from the kendo club was rushing in thinking he could get in a cheap shot from behind with his practice sword. I was just about to launch a spinning kick and take him out when a big foreign guy suddenly planted a fist in the center of the guy's chest. It was precise, beautifully so. It landed right in the perfect spot to throw the kendo guy's weight backwards. It was a mid-level martial technique that Bruce Lee constantly used in demonstrations to send men twice his own size flying back.

Another one of the punks decided to see if the new combatant was easier than me and threw a punch, a far too straight punch. To the punk, Will must have seemed lightning quick, but I could see the motion perfectly fine. The punch, over-extended as it was, was simple for Will to catch at the wrist and he punished the mistake with a light tap to the elbow, applying just enough impact to dislocate the joint. Nothing that wouldn't heal up in a day or two, but painful and debilitating enough to end the fight for the thug.

Another two punks that had been watching rushed him and Will simply slammed the heel of one palm into the ear of the first to arrive, a move illegal in martial arts tournaments because it knocked the target straight unconscious. At the time I had no idea who the guy trying to help me was, but it was clear that he was well studied in various techniques. This was made all the more clear when he diverted the second punk's punch, catching the wrist, and sent his attacker to the ground with crushing speed by placing a foot behind his attacker's and uppercutting him. All in a fluid series of motions. I'd never seen someone fight like that. The moves were all familiar, and I could do them all better, but the way he did them seemed somehow different. At the time I couldn't put my finger on it.

After the punks had run away and decided that it wasn't worth fighting both of us, he just looked at me with those piercing eyes of his and said, "Hi. Nice work." He hadn't needed to ask if I was okay, there wasn't a mark on me.

I soon found out he was in my class and we started hanging out. He rarely talked at first and his peculiarities we many. But he was good company and he was yet another person that made anyone who thought about picking on Orihime think twice. When he did finally open up I was astounded by his warmth.

"Thinking about stuff?" Will said with a soft but plain expression, breaking me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah, about how weird you were. Still are really. Why do you let me beat you up so much when you fight well enough to hold your own against me?" I turned and rang the doorbell to Orihime's place.

Will smiled at my question, "I told you already, I could never raise a hand against you."

I was a little taken aback by that, but Orihime had opened the door before I could question him. "Oh, Tatsuki-chan and Markun!"

A couldn't help but smile big around my energetic friend, "Yeah, I brought some stew for us to share."

"Oh I love your mom's beef and potato stew! Come on in I'll get us some bowls!"

_Yoruichi's Perspective_

I sat on the balcony across the way, relying on my keen cat sight and hearing to spy on the strange teen from afar. I didn't want to get spotted again after all. Will seemed perfectly normal and content with his two female friends and spoke only of random teenage stuff. They ate an apparently good meal of beef stew and kept talking. The night would have been pleasant from start to finish if not for that hollow attacking.

Before I even noticed it myself, Will froze and looked around. As the hollow came partly into the world of the living I sensed it and again could suddenly sense Will as well. His companions, surprisingly, seemed to feel something was wrong as well. Looking at their spiritual pressures however I shouldn't have been too shocked.

I sat there trying to figure out where the hollow would attack from when a claw slashed a baer sitting on a stereo before retreating again to the space between worlds. When the orange-haired Orihime went over to see what happened, she was struck down. The hollow then fully manifested and lunge for Tatsuki with hate in his eyes. It was then that something truly shocking happened.

Will knocked her out of the way and was throw across the room by the blow. I was shocked for one that he could sense the thing well enough to do that without seeing it, but again stunned when the hollow grabbed his neck and tried to choke him. The hold was the startling thing though, it was the result. The hollow recoiled almost immediately as if touched something hot and he looked at his hand as it smoked lightly. It was missing a small piece of a finger, and I stood in as much disbelief as the hollow as I noticed the black shadowy substance of the hollow being absorbing into Will.

Will's eyes went wide as the strange event completed, and I knew what that look meant. Somehow, some way, he could see the hollow at that very moment.

Yep. Things were going to get complicated.

Next Chapter: Panacea of Sorrow


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: This is a revised version of the same chapter three as before, with new content at the very end. You can skip everything down to after the battle if you've read this chapter before.

Episode 3: Panacea of Sorrow

As I watched Will sat there where he'd been thrown, gawking at the strange creature he could suddenly see clearly. A nightmarish creature that up to that point he had only been able to sense. His expression was for the most part what you would expect, but with the subtle variations his strange nature provided. Will was frightened, that much was clear and perfectly natural, the strange thing was he seemed to have some other emotion depicted on his face with far more intensity. It made so sense in his position. Clear-minded confusion, the kind of state you are in when you think you know everything to know about what you are looking at, but somehow fail to understand it. It made no sense that he would look that way at that thing. He knew what it was, and what it was capable of. There should only be fear or perhaps determination in his eyes. That pained look showing the struggle to understand that was going on in his head was out of place. Even confusion at suddenly seeing the creature would not create such an expression.

Even harder to understand, and far more important in the grand scheme of things, was what Will had done to the attacking hollow. It seemed that contact with Will's skin and burned the hollow somehow, no it was beyond that. Will had torn away some of the monster's very essence and gained the power to see it. Indeed, his spiritual pressure was detectable now, going beyond the simple but enigmatic sensation I had again felt from him when the hollow appeared. At a mere touch, not even a willing one, he's siphoned spiritual energy from the hollow. I knew of nothing with that kind of power. All possible candidates were similar but nowhere near matches. Hollows could devour spiritual pressure, including other hollows, but not thought simple skin to skin contact. Also, as far as I could tell, Will wasn't dead. There were Bounts as well, humans that devoured souls for immortality, but they didn't so it by physical contact either.

Enraged at the pain it had been inflicted with, the hollow raised a claw and swiped at the strange teen. It was dodged though, proving beyond any doubt that Will could see it. The teen put himself between the hollow and its first target: the girl called Tatsuki.

She yelled out in fear. I could tell by following her eyes that she only had a vague idea of the general direction the thing was in. "Will, what's going on?"

Will didn't answer her, but looked over his shoulder at her as it seemed to dawn on him that standing between it and her meant he couldn't dodge any more attacks. I was about to take on my natural form and help, but I sensed two spiritual pressures on the approach, one of them massive and the other barely detectable, but clearly a shinigami. Ichigo Kurosaki and Rukia Kuchiki. Looking at Will, I found myself thinking he could hold out until they arrived, and even though I should have helped, some part of me demanded I learn more.

The hollow lunged again and Will shouted, "Tatsuki! Dodge left!"

She followed his instructions, a look of surprise on her face when she seemed to realize Will was willing to take a possibly mortal blow for her. He even waited until she had taken her evasive action before getting out of the way himself. Tatsuki moved towards the limb body of Orihime, unaware the hollow was still focused on her.

"Tatsuki!" Will cried out and leaped to the side, intercepting the attack and the girl hit the floor instinctively. To my horror, the thumb of the hollow's thrusting claw pierced through his chest and the attack drove him into the wall. Tatsuki seemed mortified at the sight. It was clear though that Will wasn't the target. Why was the hollow so insistent on hurting that girl?

"WILL!" she cried out to her wounded friend and stood again, intending to help him fight whatever that thing was.

Fortunately for her, she was sent stumbling to the floor again when the ground shook with the cries of pain from the creature as he pulled back, missing a thumb, which was promptly absorbed into Will's chest. Unfortunately, this stealing of spiritual essence didn't seem to heal the strange teen at all. If anything, he seemed more off-balance, his eyes glazing a bit beyond what the wound was doing to him. The expressiveness was fading, becoming cold and filled with sadness. There was an odd intensity in their lack of intensity, as if there was only intent and determination left as he slumped to the floor, but stood up again almost immediately. It seemed impossible with a chest wound like that for any normal human to stand, but he did it, glancing over at the two girls he was trying to protect. His eyes lacked focus, but carried a weird sense of absolution to them.

Tatsuki opened her mouth to shout at him, but the spirit of Orihime, driven out by the hollow's attack on her body, came off to check on her, touching her hand in concern. Of course she couldn't she the spirit, so she recoiled, fearing that there was more than one of whatever it was that was trying to kill them.

She backpedaled away from Orihime, "Stay away from me!"

The orange-haired girl was confused, "What's wrong Tatsuki? It's me, Orihime. Don't you recognize me?"

Will was driven into the wall by the massive tail of the creature as it turned to speak to the girl, "It's useless, Orihime! She can't see or hear us!" It backhanded the girl in question, sending the tomboy crashing into the wall and into unconsciousness.

"Tatsuki!" Orihime gritted her teeth angrily, "Why not? And how do you know my name?"

The hollow hanged his head a little, "That makes me sad, Orihime. Have you forgotten my voice? How could you? It's me. Can't you tell?"

"What are you talking about?"

Finally, I spotted Ichigo arriving, leaping up to the window in a single bound and bolting into the room as the hollow became angry, "It makes me sad, Orihime. Very, very sad!" It lunged, only to be blocked by the carrot-top boy with the over-sized zanpakuto.

Ichigo seemed really annoyed, "I'm the one that you're really after! Leave her alone and fight me!"

The hollow was pushed back, the sword putting a deep gash in its already wounded hand. It retreated to the space between worlds before the rookie could finish it of. Orihime seemed shocked to see Ichigo, apparently she knew him. He was more focused on the limp bodies of his other two friends, Will and Tatsuki, to notice. That was, until she spoke to him.

"Ichigo, thank you for rescuing us from that thing, but where did you come from?"

Ichigo was shocked, "Whoa, hang on. How in the hell can you see me?"

Orihime was confused, "Why shouldn't I be able to?"

The rookie shinigami took on a horrified look as he spotted the Orihime's soul chain and followed it with his eyes back to her body. It seemed to finally register, "Then she's-"

The hollow dove explosively from the space between worlds, "That's right! ORIHIME IS DEAD!"

It dodged Ichigo's attempt at attacking, and snatched up Orihime by her soul chain. Ichigo tried to lash out again, but his sword lacked the resolve to cut through the skin of the hollow and he ended up being batted aside with such force that the wall he collided with was destroyed by the impact. The young shinigami had good instincts however, stopping his flight and staying in the air without even thinking about the act. I had to admit I was impressed.

_Rukia's Perspective_

I was about to run into the building and give Ichigo some help, but he came careening through the wall of the building, stopping himself using a shinigami movement technique he somehow knew instinctively. The hollow that had attacked him before appeared in the gap and used that girl Orihime, his own sister, as a shield.

"Stay back!" it taunted.

Suddenly, the creature cried out in pain. It whipped around to swat at whatever was harming it, but his attacker quickly shifted to stay behind him. To my surprise, it was that strange exchange student from Ichigo's school, he eyes soulless yet carrying a peculiar certainty to them. In my years as a soul reaper I had seen a similar looks on the faces of my peers when they readied themselves to battle a strong foe. Complete determination, the absolute intent to fulfill the task at hand even if your limbs are hewed from your body.

Even more shocking than that look on his face was what he was doing, by merely touching the hollow, Billy was causing the thing pain. More than that, it seemed to burn the hollow, even weakening its spiritual pressure a bit. Moreover, Billy's own pressure seemed to be getting larger. It was like he was devouring the hollow or something. The only thoughts running through my head at the sight were of how impossible what I was seeing was. I had found the other half of the anomaly, a spiritual pressure siphon.

Ichigo charged the thing, but what should have been a lethal blow to the back turned shallow. The fool still didn't have enough resolve to destroy a hollow that was once Orihime's brother. The retribution from his failure was a backhanded strike that sent him into a side wall of the room. I couldn't see what happened from street level very well, but apparently Billy was struck away from him as well.

I bolted up the stairs, the sounds of Orihime crying out for the monster to let her help her injured friends filled the air. When I got into the room, the creature was talking to her, "Orihime, have you forgotten me?"

The girl looked the creature in the eyes and gasped, "S-sora?"

The thing put her down gently and my eyes drifted across the scene. Ichigo seemed fine, but was having a hard time standing. A girl from school whose name escaped me at the time was lying limp on the floor, but was only knocked out. Billy, strangely enough, was just sitting and staring blankly at the conversation. He looked pretty beat up, but overall okay.

I looked back to Orihime, not daring to do anything until I was certain the thing wouldn't spot me. I wasn't strong enough to do anything in a fight against him. Luckily, the little sister of the monster seemed to be in no danger, "Are you really Sora?"

"Yes, Orihime. It's me."

The girl was understandably horrified, "No! You're lying! My brother was gentle. He would never do these terrible things!"

"I've been so lonely Orihime. You were beginning to forget about me, sister. A little more each day. When I first died you'd pray for me every single day. I watched you. Those prayers gave me peace, relieved me of my loneliness. But after a years had gone by things changed. You became friends with that girl," it motioned towards the unconscious girl from school, "you started praying for me less and less. Then when you entered high school, you stopped praying for me completely. That's why... I was so lonely!"

Orihime, desperate, tried to explain herself, "Sora! You don't understand I-"

The hollow grabbed her shoulders in its massive hands, "Listen to me, Orihime! If you even have a shred of love left for me you will not betray me again. Do exactly as I say!"

Suddenly, Billy stood up, his unfocused eyes were terribly unsettling. They had lost none of their intensity, just their aim. It was like instead of piercing one thing, his gaze was cutting through everything at once. He spoke in a monotone voice, his face tensing, "You hurt-"

The hollow whipped around to roar at Billy, "You! Why are you still conscious? If you keep getting in my way I'll kill you!"

"No, Sora! Stop! Don't hurt them anymore! They have nothing to do with this!"

It turned back to the girl, "Be quiet! Who's fault do you think it is that I'm like this? It's yours!" the creature seized her is his huge hands and squeezed, "You will listen you me or I will kill you first!"

Ichigo leaped into action, stabbing the thing in the tail over and over, forcing it to drop the girl, "Stop it!"

The creature slammed Ichigo upward into the ceiling, or attempted to, as the orange-haired teen quickly dodged away. The thing then lunged for its sister again, only to loose a hand to Ichigo's blade, It backed off, howling in agony while Ichigo turned to check on Orihime, who was coughing from the strangling, but otherwise seemed fine.

"Listen you," Ichigo said to his foe, "Do you know why big brother's are born first?" He turned, "It's so they can protect the little sisters and brothers that come next, you idiot! Yet here you are threatening to kill your little sister! You have to protect her even if it kills you! That's how it works dammit!"

"Shut up! Orihime belongs to me!" The thing insisted, "I raised her after our parents abandoned us. I've protected her since she was three! " it looked past Ichigo to Orihime, "Orihime! If you listen to me, I won't hurt the others."

To my surprise, she stood up, looking unsure. I had to make sure she understood, "Wait, it's a trap! He no longer has the heart of your brother."

"But."

It was then that the hollow suddenly looked shocked, as if he had just noticed something. Slowly, its eyes became human again, filled with sadness and recollection of forgotten affection. The clarity seemed to bring it pain as it cried out and slammed its own face into the wall over Billy's head. It was fighting the control of the hollow that created it. Soul society scholars had theorized that the mask brought pain to unwillingly created hollows, as one feels when struggling furiously against bindings that are already too tight but magnified many times. It was trying to break its own mask, the binding. Orihime, seeing her beloved brother in pain, called to him

But it hollered again, pulling back after the second smash and lunging for Ichigo, aiming to bite my replacement in two "ORIHIME IS MINE!"

Ichigo moved to block, but the attack never reached his defenses. Instead, Billy suddenly came from the side, grabbing the beast by the neck in a two-armed headlock. The pain of Billy's strange touch caused him to stop and cry out. It tried to get Billy off of him, but the teen's position and the sheer pain of his touch made it impossible. All it could do was cry out.

Seemingly operating on instinct, with no tone of emotion revealed on his face or in his words, Billy simply said, "You hurt...."

I watched, awestruck, as the hollow began shrinking, its very essence being absorbed into Billy. I could spot Ichigo in the corner of my vision equally dumbfounded. Orihime rushed to help her brother, but Ichigo thankfully grabbed her, "Let me go! Sora's in pain! I have to help him!"

"Stay back! It's dangerous!"

The hollow dove out to the street in an attempt to shake off his antagonizer, and we pursed, in the mere moments it took to get down there, it was already over. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was impossible for a hollow to return to normal after being transformed into a hollow unless a soul reaper purified it with his zanpakuto, sending the pure spirit to the soul society. Despite the impossible nature of the fact, the hollow was gone, replaced by a man in a suit. He didn't even have a soul chain or a hollow hole. The spirit was, by all appearances, just like it would be after being sent to the soul society. It was still in the world of the living though.

"Sora!" Orihime rushed to her confused brother.

He stepped back, "Stay back! I might change into that thing again!"

Ichigo finally turned to me, "Rukia, what the hell just happened? I can still sense a hollow, but it's coming from Billy." he pointed to his friend that was lying collapsed on the ground.

It was true. Sora was totally purified, and Billy felt just like the hollow had, "It's okay, spirit. That strange guy behind you purified you completely. I don't know how though."

Orihime, hearing this ran up and hugged her brother, "I'm sorry, Sora. It's my fault, since I said 'Don't leave me alone' that day. That's why you couldn't go to heaven."

"Orihime..."

"I knew that you were always nearby. Even yesterday, when I was about to be hit by that car you protected me. I heard you calling 'Look out!' and you pulled my leg."

So that explained it.

"But I knew that if I kept relying on you, you wouldn't be able to rest in peace. So I wanted to show you that I was happy and that you didn't have to worry. I didn't think it would make you lonely. I'm so sorry, brother."

"No, I'm the one that's sorry, Orihime. I should have thought of things from your point of view. I should have realized." he hugged her tightly, tears in his eyes.

I decided to speak up, "Orihime should be fine. Since her soul chain is still connected to her body I can simply heal it and out her soul back inside."

"Thanks heavens." Sora exclaimed, then push his sister away from him gently, "I should pass on then. If I stay here that thing might transform me again."

Orihime nodded sadly, "Before you go, I want to apologize for something else. When you gave me these hair pins we had a big fight because I thought they were too childish for me. I was wrong big brother. I let you go to work without saying anything."

"That's-"

"So... goodbye, big brother. Have a nice day."

Sora smiled, "Thanks, Orihime." he turned to Ichigo and walked over, "I'm ready to go."

Ichigo hesitated, "You sure?"

The former hollow and eternal big brother nodded. Ichigo lifted his sword and performed the konso. Orihime fell to her knees crying, but my attention was pulled away to Billy. The very instant the konso was over he began vomiting up the black substance that he had absorbed from the hollow. It came gushing out like a tap had been turned on and dissolved as it hit the ground, in the exact same way a full hollow dissolved when defeated. As his was happened, his spiritual pressure plummeted until I could no longer sense anything at all from him and he stopped vomiting, passing out. What is the name of all that is holy was he?

Ichigo rushed over to his friend, "Hey, Billy! What the hell? Are you alright?"

Angry I confronted Ichigo, "Ichigo! You lied to me! This guy is the anomaly I was searching for! How could you not have noticed anything weird about him? He's your friend isn't he?"

"Exactly! He's my friend! You were going to eliminate him or take him to your soul society! What the hell would I let you do that to a friend?"

I gritted my teeth, "So you did know he was special and you chose to conceal it. I can understand, even appreciate your loyalty, but he could be dangerous!"

"Billy isn't a threat to anyone! You don't know him like I do!"

Orihime stood up, confused but carrying a purpose, "Um... I don't know what's going on, but I agree with Ichigo. Markun's quiet and a little intimidating, but he's a sweet and caring person. He could never harm anyone. He helped my brother turn back after all."

"That make be the case, but he's draining spiritual energy from the world around him. There's no telling what damage he could do."

"At least wait and see." Ichigo pleaded, "If we can figure out he isn't anything dangerous, you don't have to destroy him right?"

I nodded, "True, but from now on I want total honesty from you."

Ichigo agreed.

Crossing my arms, I stared at Ichigo, "While we're cleaning up this incident I want you to tell me everything about him you were concealing. First, can he see spirits? He sure seemed to see that hollow just fine."

Ichigo shook his head, "No, I mean, he can sense their presence, but not see them. Actually, I think it's something completely different than my ability to see them."

"What do you mean?"

Ichigo reached down to pick up his friend, "Billy doesn't sense spirits, he can sense emotions."

"What?"

"It even works on living people too. He can always tell what others are feeling, know their personalities and generally understand them."

Those eyes that seemed to pierce through to the soul... they did.

"What the hell?" Ichigo cried out as he touched his friend, yanking his hand back as if he'd touched something hot, "My wounds...!"

Sure enough, all the wounds Ichigo had on him were gone, "He healed you? While unconscious?"

Ichigo seemed scared, shaking his head, "No... look! The wounds I had, they're on Billy now!"

Looking, I saw it was true. Along with spiritual pressure, the strange enigma seemed to take afflictions into his own body. He was like some walking panacea that took strength in payment for a boon, some kind of symbiotic power. Giving his reported affinity for emotions, it was like he was so incredibly empathic that he could take on the pain of others.

Orihime moved forward, "Markun!"

"Don't touch him!" I demanded, "We don't know what will happen!"

Ichigo walked over to Orihime and kept her back, "This doesn't make any sense, he's never absorbed my wounds before."

"It makes perfect sense, Ichigo. He must indeed be the thing that woke up your power, and you woke up his." I walked over to him and knelt beside him, starting a healing kido. "Tell me everything that might have happened. When exactly did you start seeing spirits with such frequency? Huh?" I pulled back, startled.

"What? Something wrong?"

I tried another kido, then another, "My healing spell.... it's not working. He's absorbing the spiritual energy before it can heal him." I tried a binding spell, and nothing happened. Equally parts mystified and terrified, I looked to Ichigo, "This is impossible... he's immune to kido!"

_Yoruichi's Perspective_

Witnessing those events unfolding, I marveled at all the information about the strange teen I was discovering. I had known since meeting him that he was abnormal, but I'd had no idea how abnormal he truly was. That insight into the soul I had sensed, the power to absorb spiritual energy but none of his own, the power to absorb wounds and hollowfication, and his spirit energy absorption making him impervious to kido, or at least most of it. He was dangerous, quite possibly the most dangerous being I had ever come across. It wasn't that simple though. He was as much a boon as he was a bane.

I stood there on the rooftop, observing, unsure of whether I should kill him, or protect him to my last breath. Desperate to bring certainty to such an important detail, I followed Ichigo and Rukia stealthily as Rukia went about the standard clean-up procedures (using memory replacement on Tatsuki and Orihime and healing their wounds) and Ichigo tried to tend to the unconscious Will's injuries without directly touching him. The orange-haired subsitute seemed worried, and I suspect he had known he entire time that the anamoly Rukia Kuchiki had been seeking was his friend. For one, he didn't seem nearly as surprised as he should have. Sure, it was clear Ichigo did not know the full extent of Will's abilities, but he probably knew he had some.

As the duo walked away from the scene carrying Will, I listened in. Rukia got straight to the point, "Alright, Ichigo, how much exactly do you know about him?"

"I don't know. He's never been able to do anything like this before as far as I know. He can't even see spirits, how he even _saw_ that hollow is a mystery."

"Are you telling me the truth?"

Ichigo scowled, "Of course I am! Why would I lie now?"

Rukia had to concede that point, "Well, in that case, what _do_ you know about him?"

"Like I said a minute ago, I knew he had some power, but according to him it only went as far as sensing the emotions of others, including spirits."

"So he's clairovoyant?"

"I don't know about that, but he's good at it. So good I even had him help me with getting ghosts to pass on before. Sometimes they just need a little closure I guess."

Rukia was as intrigued as I was, but more surprised, "Wait, so he's sent spirits to the soul society before?"

"Not a konso or anything like that, like I said he just says the right things and they decide to pass on. I'd think that kind of thing would be pretty common."

"Have you ever done it?"

"No. I'm not good at talking though. What, is it supposed to be impossible or something?"

Rukia shook her head, "No, but it's supposed to be beyond the average human's ability."

Ichigo sighed, "That's really all the power I knew about. Except I had a weird feeling a little while back and it was in the same time frame you said the whole thing started, so I didn't want to put him in danger. He may seem cold sometimes, but he's a really good guy."

"Regardless, I need all the details. Tell about this feeling, what caused it? How did you two even meet?" How they met might seem a useless bit of info, but for all any of us knew Will could have come looking for Ichigo for his high spiritual pressure. The strange foreigner did seem to absorb it after all.

"Well, how we met wasn't really anything special. I got to know him through my friend Chad actually. Apparently some guys were teasing Will, and he was ignoring them until Chad asked them politely to stop. They attacked Chad, but Will beat them all up."

"How many were there?"

Ichigo shrugged, "I don't know, but Chad seemed impressed. They bumped into each other again once or twice and started hanging out. It was a little while after that when he ate lunch with our group once. I found out he was also friends with Tatsuki, the black-haired girl back there, so he became a friend. More of an acquaintance really until recently. One of those people you hang out with because they are your friends' friends."

If it was like that, then Will probably wasn't actually targeting Ichigo at all.

"When did you find out about his power?"

"A couple weeks ago I was helping out a spirit the best I could and Will happened by. It was pretty close to the school and I was worrying about being discovered. Will didn't seem too shocked and helped me with the spirit. I'd never actually seen one pass on before that. He told me he'd keep my ability a secret and explained his own. He said he could always sense people's emotions and personalities, and that he always got to know people really fast because of it. He'd often feel lingering emotions sometimes and only figured out for sure that he was sensing ghosts when he met me. I don't think he knew about any of this stuff either."

"He could have been keeping the truth from you."

Ichigo shook his head, refusing the idea that Will would lie to him, "No, why would he lie about that? He was just as worried about people finding out about his ability as I was. I can't imagine what his life must be like with that power, knowing peoples feelings, even the dark ones."

"Alright, I'll trust your opinion on that. Let's say he had this kind of power lying dormant in a weaker form just like you did. This bad feeling may have been the trigger that unlocked both of your full abilities."

Ichigo nodded, "Yeah, seeing him do that stuff made that pretty clear. I got that weird feeling when we shook hands that day. It wasn't anything major, but now that I think about it it was probably him taking a little of my spiritual pressure accidentally."

"And with all that pent up spiritual energy you had, that little leak would probably make it come gushing out." Rukia made the logical conclusion. "What he is is a total enigma. I've never heard of anything or anyone being able to cure hollowfication, take wounds on itself, or steal spiritual pressure."

"Well that's your department. I don't know anything about that stuff." Ichigo declared, then looked at Rukia with resolution, "But whatever he is, I'm not letting anyone hurt him, understand? He's a good person and a friend of mine."

Rukia took in the weight of that expression of Ichigo's and nodded, "If you feel that strongly about it, I'll try my best to believe in him too. We'll see what happens."

Ichigo seemed relieved, "So, what happens now?"

Rukia shrugged, "I'm not sure. I'd try memory replacement on him too, but I'm not entirely sure it would even work. He was immune to my healing kido, and that device is kido based. Plus we might lose vital information. Besides, if what you say is true, we probably won't need to use it."

"Memory replacement? Is that what you did to those two back there? And my family the other day?"

"Relax, it's harmless. They just remember something different besides what really happened. I can't control what memory they get, but each witness of a given situation gets the same memory."

"How does that even work? You know what, never mind, I don't wanna know."

Rukia looked ahead with concern, "Either, all we can really do is wait and see what happens with Will tomorrow."

"What about his wounds?"

"I can't heal them, but thankfully he should be fine on his own."

They dropped him off at his apartment soon after and I sat perched outside the window as they left, keeping my eye on the teen. It was around 5 in the morning when he woke up and grabbed his head in discomfort. He only looked confused for a moment when he noticed his surroundings, quickly accepting things. It was probably too much to hope for that he thought it was a dream considering he was well aware of his injuries.

"When did I get this wound on my head?" he muttered to himself. Naturally since he was unconscious when he took on Ichigo's wound, he wouldn't remember getting it. "That was nuts."

Will stood and marched quickly over to his fridge, opening it like he'd never seen food in his life and downing a soda and a sandwich with startling speed, then wolfing down a fourth a jar of peanut butter in record time. I'd seen hunger like that, hell I'd experienced it a few times in my days. It was just like the starved feeling brought on my expending too much spirit energy. Thing is, Will shouldn't have had enough reishi to need replenishing like that. Perhaps I just couldn't detect the energy he used and was trying to regain? Or maybe it was just a side effect of his power?

I watched his reaction to his binge, he seemed surprised so such a thing was probably new to him. I didn't have much time to ponder it, because he sensed me somehow, probably that weird clairvoyance of his. He turned and grabbed a carton of milk out of the fridge and a small bowl, pouring some and stopping to grab of glass of it himself before coming over to the widow. Naturally I darted away and hid myself on the adjacent building, but he opened the window regardless and set the bowl on the sill. He looked a bit frustrated, going off into the living room where I couldn't see him from my hiding spot.

Damn it all, he knew I was watching, not only that he was trying to lure me to were he wanted me. To be honest, I was slightly worried he would try to eat me, or at least my reishi. Only a small part of me bore that fear however. Most of me knew he wasn't like that. That same large portion of me was also adverse to the power he had. Ichigo had said Will could "know people fast" and that was far from a good idea in my situation. Though thinking about it, the guy pretty much knew everything that needed to be hidden already.

So I got a little reckless, going back down to the window and sitting near the bowl without drinking. It was easy to spot Will, sitting deliberately in plain sight and not even looking at the window. He was deep in thought, and had notably downed his glass of milk already. Perhaps he was still feeling hungry.

He startled me a little when he spoke suddenly, "What happened back there? I'm not entirely sure.... All I remember is trying to stop that hollow from hurting Tatsuki. I fought it a bit.... Why could I suddenly see it? What happened to it?"

He didn't even know? Strange. Thinking back, his eyes had in fact seemed seemed lifeless at a point, as if he were working totally on instinct. I wasn't sure what to do, talking to the kid was probably a stupid idea, but I felt almost compelled to, simply to speed the process of getting information.

Kisuke, thats it. I'd consult Kisuke about it. I turned to leave when Will spoke again, the confession was making seemed hard for him, "Please... don't leave... I.... I'm scared."

I turned to look at the teen, and though his face as usual carried little expression, his eyes begged me for help. He didn't understand a single thing that was going on. I could tell.

Next Chapter: The Silent Friend

A/N: I know I've been keeping the perspective away from Billy's viewpoint, and that is for a good reason. I want to fully establish the views Rukia, Yoruichi, and Tatsuki have of him. Their relationship to Billy is an important part of this story. Also, I like what's going on in his head being a mystery to the reader. It's actually an interesting twist on first person perspective. Most of the time, stories are told through the perspective of the main character or by a narrator. In this, it is told by people observing the main character, but in the events themselves. I was going to switch to a more conventional perspective soon, but I'm not sure if I will anymore. I have to think about that.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Sorry for the long wait between chapters. I had a bit of writer's block. I'm back, but do not expect updates any quicker than once a week, if that. I'm trying to regularly update all my stories now and I have a lot of them lol. Anyway, one of the hitches in writing this chapter was in transitioning from the previous chapter to the events of the upcoming episode featuring Chad and the bird. In the end it was actually a lot simpler than I made it out to be. All I had to do was spout thinly veiled exposition for most of a chapter! lol

Chapter Four: The Silent Friend

Despite myself, I woke up in Will's apartment the next morning. I stretched like a real cat would, all the way down to my claws, and looked around for him while trying to look casual. I even through in a plop to the side and half-closed my eyes to add to the feline performance. The show was pointless in the end, Will was to occupied with treating the wound on his chest the hollow had given him. Despite all the healing kido that Rukia had tried on him it didn't look even a little better. Fortunately though it was not worse than it was. The claw had only gone in a short distance rather than all the way through. It was still practically a knife wound, but that's still better than being skewered.

Will sighed, "I suppose I'll need to buy some gauze before school... a _lot_ of gauze." A glance my way brought the slightest twitch of a smile to his neutral expression, "Oh, you're awake."

I turned over, trying to act like a cat.

The guy walked over and knelt down, reaching down to pet me. He hesitated though and pulled his hand back, reflecting on vague memories of the night before as he stared at it. The small spark of energy left his face and he stood instead of continuing, making his way to the fridge, "I probably shouldn't touch you. One of the few things I can remember clearly is that touching things that feel out of place is not good." Opening the fridge, he turned to look at me and pondered, "I wonder why I didn't get any strange feedback when I petted you a few days ago."

That was actually a good point. Though it was probably because my cat form suppressed my spiritual pressure and was only possible because I had a large amount of control of that energy.

"It's almost undetectable, but I get the same sensation around you that I get around Rukia, and she's a 'soul reaper.'"

He had figured me out. I kicked myself inside for my carelessness.

The teen continued to think aloud, "That hollow felt totally different so you can't be one of those, and how many weird things can there be?"

He'd be surprised, and was hardly in a position to talk about 'weird things'.

"Sorry."

I couldn't help but freeze in place at his responding to my thoughts. His ability to read emotions was incredibly sharp. Borderline telepathic. I say borderline because I promptly tried, and failed, to communicate with him through thoughts.

"Anyway, I might have gone nuts and started imagining all this, but I figure grim reaper cats, grim reapers being able to turn into cats, or a cat creature that feels like a grim reaper makes about as much sense as anything else that's going on."

I pretended to be disinterested while I thought about how to handle the very complicated situation.

"Alright then." Will studied me for a moment, then sharply changed subjects, "Beef for your breakfast then." He took out some meat that had already been prepared along with some other ingredients and a lunch box. "You only had milk last night so you need more substance for breakfast. I don't know which vegetables to feed a cat, much less a soul reaper cat, so you'll have to balance the rest of your diet yourself."

I watched him prepare a simple boxed lunch and set a portion of the meat aside on a saucer. Enough to be considered a generous but not huge amount for a cat my size. I strolled over and did my best to act like a cat by staring right at the meat. In hindsight though, I should have been looking at the meat container in his hand and not the saucer on the counter. A cat would look at the food in a person's hand first. Not that I could tell he'd picked up on that at the time. I only had a suspicion that he knew cats a better than the average person based on his action from days before.

"There you go." he sat the food down for me and put the lid on his own box, then went from a box of cereal, "Since you aren't talking I'll just assume the best: that you can't for whatever reason." he chuckled, "I'd prefer it if it were not me being insane." he paused, remembering his wounds, "Then again, maybe this whole situation being just a delusion would be better than the truth... those things are not uncommon. I've felt that feeling before... things similar at least. Some in more emotional pain, some in less but far more angry. I thought they were just pissed off ghosts or lingering traces of suffering... but now... I saw one... it tried to kill my friends and me." he looked to me, "And I get the damnedest feeling I'm forgetting something important about it."

He put the cereal back, apparently having lost his appetite, "I'm headed out, I need to get bandages for these injuries."

I looked up from my meal and licked my lips, again playing the part of a cat. On a whim I followed my gut and decided to keep that up. For the time being I would play the part and follow him closely. I knew neither Ichigo or Rukia (in her weakened state) would be able to detect my spirit energy if I took extra effort to hide it and something told me that while Will was still uncertain of what I was he wouldn't mention his suspicions. It was a better plan than nothing, and I was still not sure if I should be open with him or not.

* * *

Rukia's Perspective

"Ichigo! You have a guest!" my sister Karin shouted from downstairs. "It's Billy!"

The teen himself motioned for me to get out of view of the doorway so I picked up my breakfast and hopped into the small sleeping area I'd set up in the closet, but didn't bother closing it. Ichigo opened his bedroom door just enough for him to lean out of it, "Send him up!"

It only took Billy a moment to climb the stairs and step in, keeping his voice low, "I wish you'd been the one to answer the door, I had to explain how my forehead managed to get a burn on it. Couldn't get gauze for my chest wound, because I can't think of a excuse."

"I'll get you some later. What did you say about the burn?"

"That I fell down a couple stairs and face-planted on a carpet."

"Good." Ichigo offered a seat with a motion of his hand, "Take a seat, we need to talk."

"Yeah, we d-" he stopped, startled when he spotted me in the closet, then turned back to Ichigo, "I didn't realize you kept soul reapers in your closet."

I raised an eyebrow in suspicion, "You know about soul reapers?"

"Not like you were that covert about it." he motioned at Ichigo, "I figure he told you about my ability?"

"Yes."

"So naturally I would know immediately that something was up with you and him from our meeting in the classroom. Even if you were better actors. And naturally I'd be concerned for my friend and keep and eye on you. Especially when he pulled you aside with such enthusiasm and agitation."

"You heard our whole discussion then?"

The teen crossed his arms, "You weren't that covert about it."

I sighed, "Have you told anyone else?"

Ichigo answered for him, "Of course he didn't. Billy wouldn't do that without talking to me first. That and who would believe it?"

"Also," Billy added, "If it were public knowledge and believed you'd already know it was out. Everyone would be calling constantly and the press would be outside."

I had to acknowledge both points were fairly spot on, "True."

"And I assume everyone, or rather every_thing_, that _would _believe it already knows. I can sense Ichigo from at least a block away."

"You can?" Ichigo had apparently not known this.

"You're not hard to notice. You never have been, but it's been next to impossible for the past couple weeks, and even more so the last few days."

I knew the reason for both cases, "The time you two accidentally woke up each others' powers and the time Ichigo gained my soul reaper powers."

"That is one reason I'm here. My senses are sharper, and different... and that mess last night with the hollow. I couldn't see it until it touched me. After that things are a little fuzzy. I remember it being in pain... me getting stronger but feeling light-headed and sick... and my senses got even sharper. The rest..."

"You really don't know anything about your strange abilities or remember last night?"

"No. I only remember base impulses... and vague near nothings that make me suspect I was more active than I know."

Ichigo struggled to find the words to gently explain it, but I took the direct route, "You absorbed the very essence of the hollow, somehow purifying it."

"_What?_"

"A short time later, after the purified spirit passed on you vomited up the essence and lost consciousness. When Ichigo checked on you," I pointed to the burn, "You absorbed a little of his spiritual energy and took his wounds." I continued as Billy touched the burn with a stunned look on his face, "I suspect your natural empathic abilities were amplified many times somehow and now you literally absorb pain and the energy of people souls."

"So I can heal people by eating their souls?"

"Not quite, but similar to that." I shrugged, "I have no idea where this ability could come from or what causes the other ones."

"Other ones?" From the expression on his face, it was easy to believe that he was as in the dark as we were about himself.

"I can't sense any spiritual energy coming from you. Every living thing has spiritual energy."

"Great." the teen sighed, "I'm somehow an undead soul-devouring wound sponge."

"You are also seemingly immune to sou reaper magic."

He rolled his eyes, "I should probably be less surprised that there's magic too."

"It's a lot to take in, I know."

"You really don't know what's caused these powers to surface?"

I shook my head, "I have no idea what you are at all, but like I mentioned before, the two of you must have accidentally unsealed each others' powers somehow. You probably always had the ability to siphon a little energy, but Ichigo had so much bottled up inside him that your little poke made it come gushing out. Perhaps the flow boosted your own abilities. I'm not totally sure of any of this, its mainly conjecture that fits very well."

Ichigo had a guilty expression on his face, "I'm sorry, man."

"You couldn't have known any more than I could have." Billy assured him, "Plus it ended up getting you stuck in fights with corrupted ghost monsters. Me turning into a weird vampire thing is not quite as bad as being at war with monsters."

"I don't know about that."

Billy smiled, being warmer than I had ever seen the normally very intense teen, "All I have to do is get this under control and I'll be fine."

"Not really."

The smile went abruptly to confusion, "What do you mean?"

I cut in, "The Soul Society, which governs Soul Reapers, picked up an anomaly with this town's spiritual energy. I was sent to find it, fix it, and to deal with the increased number of hollows in the area."

"Ichigo and I are the anomaly."

"You don't _seem_ like the huge danger that Soul Society thought could be causing it, but that's only your personality."

"I get what you're trying to say. I can steal spiritual energy and am immune to their magic. I know very little about what makes you soul reapers tick, but it sounds like I'm fundamentally reaper kryptonite."

"Kryptonite?"

Ichigo rolled his eyes, "It's a comic book thing. He means his powers are deadly to soul reapers."

"Oh."

"The healing thing doesn't back that up. Don't forget that."

"You've got me there." I rubbed my chin in thought, "If you were some threat specifically to soul reapers, you wouldn't have something that was helpful to us. In fact you're more dangerous to hollows. Even is equal parts good since you purify them."

Billy sighed heavily, "Nothing about this makes any sense. Except the mechanics of it I suppose."

"Regardless, I-"

"Ichigo! You're going to be late for school, young man, get moving!" Ichigo's father called from downstairs.

"In a minute, Dad!"

"Move it! You can chat with your friend on the way!"

Ichigo sighed, "We should get moving. Sorry about this."

I brushed the interruption aside, "The rest of this conversation can wait anyway. I'll head to school ahead of you so we don't raise any more suspicions."

"Good idea." Ichigo nodded, "Come on, Billy, I'll grab you some bandages on the way out."

I hopped to the window sill, but turned back for a final word, "Ichigo trusts you, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but don't think that I've let down my guard."

"Rukia!"

Unlike Ichigo, Billy didn't seem to take any offense, "I understand. That's fine. I really don't know anything though."

I was pretty sure he didn't. But I couldn't help the feeling I had that he was hiding something.

An otherwise uneventful morning later I ran into a frustrating obstacle. It was around noon, and the frustrating enigma before me simply added to my level of stress from the persistent one we were dealing with. Thankfully it wasn't as universe shaking as Billy, but I was still stumped. In the end, a short time after Ichigo and I reached the roof of the school, I held up the small riddle in front of him, "How do I drink from this thing?"

He raised a perplexed eyebrow before shrugging off his disbelief, "Oh, you just poke a hole in it. Use the sharp end of your straw."

"Straw?" I studied the 'juice box' carefully, so intently in fact that I didn't even notice one of Ichigo's friends arrive and talk to him, "Ah! So this is the straw...! It's short..."

"Why hello there." I looked up from the juice and noticed the cheery student for the first time.

I proceeded to activate cute mode, "Oh hello! You're... Mizuiro right?"

"That's me." A bright smile spread across his face, "Though I guess we haven't been properly introduced. I'm Mizuiro Kojima, my hobbies include-"

"Pickin' up chicks." Ichigo interrupted.

Mizuiro was comically surprised, "Ichigo that's not cool!"

Ichigo looked at me seriously, "He may look like a dork, but he's a real player. Seriously."

"Oh come on, you're going to permanently damage my reputation. Besides, you know I prefer older women."

"Like I said Rukia, watch out for this one."

"Huh?" Mizuiro looked at me in confusion, but I had gone back to trying to open my juice.

Ichigo sighed, "Just forget it."

More whimsy happened while I was distracted and before I knew it Ichigo's other friend Keigo was introducing himself, for some reason saluting and crying and then going into a weird rant about a lunch party. When that was done he got slightly more normal, "So, anyway, Rukia, if you ever find yourself needing anything feel free to ask me."

Relief filled me as I saw the chance to find the answer to the juice riddle, I held it forward and was about to ask Keigo to open it when a large hand poked the straw through a tiny hole in the top. I jumped in shock that Billy was standing right next to me, "AH!"

Keigo laughed, "Geez, I keep telling you to stop doing that, man. You'll give her a heart attack one of these days." he leaned back a little then jolted himself, "GAH! For pity's sake!"

Right behind him was the largest of Ichigo's friends, a fellow named Chad, "Sorry."

Billy smiled, "I still don't know how nobody ever notices us come in. I mean, Chad's bigger than anyone else in the school, and I'm as tall as Ichigo."

Keigo freaked out slightly at something else, motioning at their bandages, "Have you guys been fighting thugs again? What the hell happened?"

Chad answered first, "I had a mishap. A steel beam fell on my head."

"A steel beam? For real?"

"Then a motorcycle hit me on the way to school." Chad continued as it such a thing was totally normal, "The force of the crash threw the driver off, so I picked the guy up and carried him to the hospital."

Ichigo stood, "What the heck are you even made of?"

Chad ignored the question and when he bent over I noticed the bird cage he was setting down. So did Keigo, "Where'd you get a bird?"

The bird, of all things, introduced itself, "My name is Yuichi Shibata, it's nice to meet you. What's your name?"

I froze, then glanced to Ichigo, who was equally stunned and I could tell by the gravity of the look on his face that he'd sensed the same thing I had. I turned to look at Billy, who was already looking at me with an expression that said, "So it wasn't just me, you sensed it too."

Ichigo looked to Chad, "So Chad... where _did _you get this bird?"

"Someone... gave him to me."

Keigo sprang to his feet from fawning over the bird, "There you go again, getting lazy and shortening the story. Who gives out birds that talk this well?"

"That is the whole story."

"No way! You just got lazy. That's a bad habit you have..." Keigo started on another rant.

I took advantage of the distraction to take Ichigo aside under the guise of leaning on the gate around the roof, "Don't worry, there is something in that bird but I don't think it's evil. It's-"

"A small child, scared and alone." Billy had followed, again without my noticing, "Hard to tell the scared and lonely bit though. He gets along with Chad very well and feels totally at peace around him. There's something else I can't quite identify though. It being inside another creature makes in hard to read its emotions. It's literally wrapped up in a bird's freaking out mind. As crude as animal minds are, they can still panic."

I was grateful for the deeper analysis, "We can't leave it like that. Even inside a body it could still become dangerous. Ichigo, we need to do a konso tonight."

My replacement groaned, "Great. Just what I need. Another sleepless night."

"Complaining doesn't help anyone."

Deep in thought, Ichigo began reminiscing, "Chad's always been like this. He can never turn his back on anything suffering. Remember how I told you Chad met Billy? I met Chad a pretty much identical way. I was was on the receiving end of a beating because some goons didn't like my hair and Chad saved me when it was just about to get really bad. He pretty much just took my place in the beating though. He just waited from them to get sick of hitting him. He never fights to protect himself."

"He's a strange one."

"That aside," Billy mentioned suddenly, "I should probably mention the other thing."

"Other thing?"

"I'm not totally sure, but several times today I've gotten a very odd feeling. A lot like what I got before the hollow attacked. It might be nothing, I've felt that many times before finding out what it was, but it's weird that I'd feel it again so soon."

"Yes. Normally hollows aren't this active, but thanks to you two that's changed."

"If they are after Ichigo's spiritual energy like he said then this might not be a coincidence."

Ichigo went slightly wide-eyed, "He's right. They've already tried to get to me through Orihime. One could be after Chad now."

There was something peculiar about this case, I knew it. I couldn't put my finger on it though, "What does the bird have to do with it though? I don't sense an evil in it."

"That other thing I can't pick out maybe?" Billy mused, "It's not a hollow, but the bird knows something I'm sure."

"All the more reason to head out tonight."

Billy nodded, "I'll stick around Chad. We hang out after school a lot anyway so it won't seem out of place. Should I skip Karate Club?"

"If you can get away with it without arousing suspicion."

He nodded again, then headed over to the rest of the group with his lunch box. Ichigo was obviously worried, but changed topics, "Glad to see you're getting along with Billy after all."

"He's useful, but strangely calm about this."

"He's just hard to read. He doesn't let a lot of people know what he's really feeling."

"Does he let you know?"

"Kinda. We're a lot alike so I can get a better bead on him than most people."

I leaned back, "So what's he really feeling?"

"He's terrified. Of facing another hollow, of Chad being in danger, and of everything going on with his powers. I'm sure you can understand why."

I nodded. Looking at the teen and keeping Ichigo's perspective in mind, I was finding it harder and harder to think that Billy was any threat at all.

Next Chapter: The Rush

Preview: The new hollow closes in and the mystery of the bird is unraveled. Billy seems poised to join Ichigo and Rukia in their fight to protect people and spirits from hollows, but how will he fair when he must come to blows with a hollow once again? A new aspect of his strange power is revealed in the next chapter!

A/N: I hereby open the first of a series of ongoing polls for this story. If you review, include which of the three narrators (Rukia, Yuruichi, or Tatsuki) you enjoy the most in this story.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: I changed to Yoruichi's perspective between chapters. I think I did a decent job conveyed the shift quickly in the chapter itself, but I thought I'd include this anyway. Also, I know I said not to expect super fast update, but I felt like doing another chapter. Mainly because it doesn't feel right leaving the story sitting at this point until I work my way back around to it. I still can't guarantee rapid updates, but I probably won't be updating any other stories until I get this one at least past the Uryu Ishida episodes.

Chapter 5: The Rush

"Hey there, Old-Timer." Will bent down and placed what was left of his lunch in front of me, "I did some research and it turns out these veggies are fine for cats."

"You really like cats." A taller teenager beside Will responded in monotone. The kid was huge and dark-skinned, clearly at least part foreign.

Billy smiled as I played my part and ate the food, "I like all animals, Chad, but yeah I prefer cats. Dogs are loyal pretty much right away with little effort. Cats you normally have to work at because their more independent, but once you get past that they usually adore you. There's just something about that that appeals to me."

"Mm." 'Chad' lightly grunted his understanding.

"You going to the arcade today or do you want to drop Yuichi off at your place first?" Will covertly motioned at the bird where I could see it. I had already noticed the ghost in the bird though.

Chad shrugged, "Don't you have karate club today?"

"I'm skipping it." was the blunt reply, "Actually I was thinking about quitting. I'm not really into competitive martial arts."

"What about Tatsuki?"

Will tensed, the slight blushing of his face taking credibility out of his response, "You too? How many times do I have to deny having a crush on her before you guys will believe me?" With a sigh, he started walking away from the school, "Either way, I'm not in top condition today. I got the school nurse to write me a note excusing me."

I half expected Chad to ask about Will's injuries, but he minded his own business. Observing the two of them as we walked towards downtown, I noted they were both fairly hard to read by just looking at their expressions (or normally their _lack_ of expression). It was a good thing that my many years of working as what amounts to an assassin in the Stealth Force made me fairly insightful about people when I took the time to study them. They didn't really talk as much as most friends do, but they seemed to have a sort of understanding between them. They just seemed to click, several of their mannerisms being similar enough to show they had a lot in common.

I didn't miss the fact that Chad had a good deal more spiritual pressure than a normal human. In fact it was around the same amount that Orihime and Tatsuki had. It seemed everyone I'd noticed were close to Will and Ichigo had elevated levels. It was odd.

"I don't really feel up for much either." Chad stated plainly, "I'll just head home."

Will looked at his friend with concern, "I'll see you home then. I'm not shocked you're not feeling well considering what happened this morning."

"I'm fine. I'm just not up for it."

Will's expression became more stern, "Chad... you know you can't hide anything from me."

"I'm-"

"Hiding something from me about what happened this morning. Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"No." there was a barely detectable twinge of hesitation in the large teen's voice.

Will started to say something, but after a moment of thought he decided against it. "Alright. If you saw so. You know that you can count on me whenever you _are_ in trouble. Right?"

Will saw his towering friend to the giant's place on the second floor of a small apartment complex while I lurked in the stairway waiting. He stopped in that very stairwell on the way back and sat down, immediately reporting to me, "That bird has a little boy's spirit in it and I sense something weird around it. Remember the couple of times this morning that I said I thought I could sense a hollow but nothing attacked? This morning Chad, who is carrying around a ghost, got in two weird accidents. My gut tells me it isn't a coincidence, and that strange feeling from the bird feels related." he sighed and scratched his head, "I really don't get it though. I don't sense any bad in the bird, just fear and loneliness that Chad is putting at ease... and some other emotion I can't pin down. It's big and powerful but concealed by the psyche of the actual bird the ghost is in. It must have something to do with the ghost's connection to the hollow."

It was an enigma alright. There were many things that it could be that I had encountered before, but with so little information there wasn't enough information to narrow it down.

"This would be a great time for advice if you can give any." Will looked at me and waited, "No? Fine."

The teen let out another sigh and mulled over the problem. After a few minutes he spoke again, "You know. I was tempted to tell him the entire situation. I mean, I know he wouldn't tell anyone and since I can tell he knows something is weird about the bird he'd probably believe me. But... if I did that, and there really is a hollow lurking around him then there's no telling what it would do. Right now it must just be toying with him. If I let on that the jig is up..." For a moment he perked up, trying to detect the hollow, "It's not paying me any attention if it's nearby. If it was it would have tried to kill me right then rather than risk me giving him away."

He had a point. The hollow would want to silence him if it were a prowling type that was toying with prey. I was a bit taken aback at his logic. Some reapers aren't as logical in their hollow tracking after special courses. However, he didn't seem to know that the hollow probably couldn't detect his location from between dimensions. Sure if the hollow kept an eye on him he could watch him, but finding him was an entirely different matter. I would have thoroughly enjoyed having him at my disposal back in the Stealth Force. The more time I spent with him, the more _useful_ the walking spiritual void seemed to be.

"So I'll do some lurking of my own. I'll be able to sense it coming from here. I just hope I can stop it if it attacks tonight."

Several hours passed in silence, Will devoting himself entirely to his watch. It was one of the rare occasions that he displayed an emotion for a long time: worry. When he tensed, stood, and made for the door I was right behind him, ready to help if I was absolutely needed. I noted again how much earlier he sensed the hollow, as we were already two steps to Chad's before I picked it up myself. It wasn't early enough though, as and explosion rocked the building. When Will kicked the door in we saw a room torn to pieces and didn't see the far wall, because it was gone. A quick glance at the kitchen revealed the hollow had caused a gas leak.

"CHAD!" Will rushed to the edge of the building. Doing the same I saw his mammoth friend was somehow getting up off the ground with the birdcage in hand and then running away. "He isn't burned at all! Thank God. He must have sensed it and jumped out the window. The idiot does know something's after him!" Frantic but still with his wits about him, he reached for his cellphone, "Dammit! It's dead!"

While he went running out the door to try and catch up to his friend, I left Will to his own path and took to the rooftops. Things were getting more serious, and I wasn't about to let things get out of hand.

* * *

Rukia's Perspective, the Next Morning

Ichigo's phone rang just as I was getting done changing out of my pajamas, my substitute giving the device a curious look, "I don't know this number..." he answered and I heard a panicked voice coming over the line, even though I was too far to make any more of it than muffles, "Billy, calm down. Chad is in the clinic downstairs. There was a car accident down the street." Billy said something, to which Ichigo replied, "Yeah, a hollow did it. Chad lost a lot of blood but he's pretty much fine. Head this way and we'll handle this thing together."

I waited for Ichigo to end the call and popped out of the closet, "I'm actually still not sure we should be letting Billy near hollows."

"Don't tell me you still don't trust him? He'd never hurt Chad or me."

"I'm pretty sure he wouldn't. I'm talking about his injuries and his powers. For one I can't heal Billy. Any wounds that he get he will be stuck with."

"And then there's the matter of his powers. We still can't predict what his power will do to him or the hollow."

"He purifies hollows, I thought we figured this out already?"

I made it simple, "We established his powers seemed to be a bizarre enhanced empathy that lets him absorb suffering. He purified Orihime's brother because at that hollow was good at its core and didn't become one by choice."

"You're saying that like it's a rare case."

I shook my head, "Not exactly rare, but according to the statistics only about a fourth of hollows are forcibly created. Most of the others either become corrupted over time or give into the corruption straight away. Also, most hollows are from evil souls just because evil people have a much higher mortality rate in most areas. Given the behavior of this hollow, it's more likely it's one of those and we don't know what will happen if Billy touches it. The best case scenario is his powers work normally."

"What's the worst?"

Shrugging, I was very direct, "Like I said, there's no way to know for sure. If those powers require suffering to work they might simply not work. However, it is possible that trying might-"

There was a knocking on Ichigo's door and the voice of his sister Yuzu came through the door with a worried tone, "Ichigo, Chad's gone!"

"I'll be right down!" Ichigo's face was filled with concern, but he spoke in a low voice, "Dammit, he must have woken up and ran off to protect us. That moron!"

I whispered, "Any idea where he would go?"

"No."

"What about Billy? Would he know?"

"Maybe, but I can't call him. His phone died and he was calling from a payphone. We probably don't have time to wait for him to get here."

"You're right. I'll meet you outside. Have your sisters give Billy a message so when he does get here he can head out as well."

"You're going to let him help after all that stuff you just said?"  
"We don't really have much choice. If he's anything like you I get the feeling he'd get involved either way. We can worry about him when Chad isn't in danger."

Ichigo nodded and I moved to the window. On my way down I heard him leave his room and rush down the stairs. I met him a ways down the street and he was quick to get straight to business, "Any ideas?"

"I checked for any news on a hollow from Soul Society and there was nothing. I can't sense one either. It must be concealing itself in the space between our two worlds."

"They can do that?" Ichigo growled in frustration, "What about the bird? Can we home in on the spirit of the kid?"

"Not from this distance, it's small and concealed by the spirit of the bird. It would be next to impossible."

Frustrated, Ichigo proceeded to try anyway. There was a weird sensation in the air, as if he were stretching his own pressure out into the energy around him. I focused on detecting energy myself and was astonished when Ichigo proceeded to reach out and grab one of the many ribbons of spiritual energy in the air. It was a high level techniques that he just decided out of the blue to use... and succeeded, "Gotcha! It's right there!"

He bolted down the street, so I pushed aside my amazement and followed. It only took a few minutes of running full out before we spotted Chad coming out of an alley. When he spotted us he immediately fled. It was obvious that the hollow was in hot pursuit, even though it had apparently concealed itself again. It was a tricky one, smart enough and sadistic enough to make me look forward to getting rid of it. Toying with prey that long takes a particularly sick mind.

"Chad! Stop running away! You need my help!"

A strained voice came from behind us suddenly. It was Ichigo's sister Karin, "Ichigo!"

"Karin? What are you doing here? You look really sick!" the teen ran over to his sister and caught her as she lost her strength.

I looked to the road Chad had run down, "Ichigo, get her home so we know she'll be safe. I'll handle them."

"Are you nuts? You can't except me to just leave you!"

"I know exactly what would happen if you left her. You'd be distracted during the fight and against a hollow this crafty we can't afford that. Get her home fast and get back here."

"Fine," Ichigo picked up his ailing sister, "but I hope you know you aren't strong enough right now to handle a hollow by yourself. Please don't put yourself at risk for me."

"Please. Veteran soul reapers never take unnecessary risks with a hollow. Get going."

I started after Chad as fast as my legs could carry me, but after only a few minutes I realized that I had already overestimated my limitations. I wasn't used to having a body and the way it worked independently of my spiritual body. The fatigue in my legs wasn't even my own, and unlike many gigai, the one I was in didn't seem to have any features to help make up the difference in strength from my reaper body. Right then I thought being human was terrible, but I didn't have much time to dwell on it. I sensed a hollow materializing. The fact I was sensing it so soon meant it had to be really really close.

Right behind me in fact. "Ahhh... you smell good. You smell delicious. TIME FOR AN APPETIZER!"

The creature tried to suck my soul from my body, and I felt the tugging on it, but I jumped forward and handspringed out of the way. I took a second to study the from of the creature. It was simple looking, very much like a bat. A nearly two story tall bat that feasted on the souls of the living and dead.

It was delighted with the prolonged meal, "So, you're still alive. You're tougher than I thought. Plus you can see me quite clearly. Just who are you?"

Rather than answer or wait for him to figure it out, I decided to take the element of surprise by leaping into the air and springing off of his head, ""

The kido surged forth into the hollows back and echoed out with a large cloud of smoke. I only had a second to feel satisfied with my victory and land before the smoke cleared and revealed that the spell had done nothing but give me away, "Heh heh, I see. I know that spell. That's a soul reaper spell. No bite to it though. Nothing like the other two reapers I've already eaten when they tried to help the boy. That delicious scent of yours does bring back such wonderful memories!"

"The boy... You mean the spirit trapped in the bird! What's your connection to it? Why are you chasing it?"

"I might be persuaded to tell you if you let me have a little nibble, heh heh heh."

"You hollow scum." I found myself glad that Billy wasn't there trying to use his powers. The hollow was very much one of the truly evil ones. So evil that he might as well have been dripping it everywhere as he laughed at me.

* * *

(A/N: I skip ahead here but I didn't feel like transcribing a long canon scene that isn't changed any. Basically the whole scene of Chad helping Rukia fight the hollow happens normally, Including the hollow pinning Yuichi under explosive slugs to make Chad stay put and force Rukia into a game of deadly tag. I should probably go ahead and write it here, but my writing suffers when I simply copy canon and it would make the chapter longer than I want it to be.)

Yoruichi's Perspective

Finally I managed to track Chad down again, mainly thanks to the chaos of a battle taking place with the hollow. I missed most of it, but I did get there in time to see Rukia lure the creature away from Chad, who was staring at the birdcage several yards in front of him with worry. A hostage situation obviously. I landed right in front of the boy.

"Billy's cat?" Chad looked at me, perplexed, "Get out of here. It's dangerous."

The little monsters growled at me. One them leaped at me almost immediately when I didn't back off, but it wasn't much of a threat. Even my cat form was enough for it. I just sprang up and headbutted the thing away and it burst on a nearby pole. When the other two one the cage fired slugs at me, I quickly moved out of the way and batted them off, killing them pretty soon after. Weak little things, like most minion-type hollows tended to be. They couldn't even really be considered separate creatures. It was like if you flicked a toenail at someone. Well... if that toenail was explosive.

"What the?" Chad was naturally very confused, but I darted off instead of explaining. The Kuchiki girl was in trouble, and though I was hesitant to make my presence known to a soul reaper, I would if I absolutely had to.

It didn't take long to catch up and Rukia was doing a fine job of evading the slug sprays of a small army of the little froggy minions. However, when she went to vault over a rail she was briefly stuck in one place, a very narrow window that a minion concealed in a bush took advantage of. There was no dodging the geyser of creepy crawlies, but there moved to be no need. Rukia was yanked off the rail and out of the way by Will, who took the full brunt of the attack.

"Ugh!" he shook some of the goo off before it was absorbed into him. The slugs started smoking, "That's gross. Where's the hollow, I'll-"

The creature in question roared in anger, "What is it with all these interruptions today?" A forked tongue came from the thing's mouth.

Rukia shouted, "Brace yourself! He's going to blow the-"

A ringing noise came from the tongue and filled the air, but the slugs were absorbed into Will's skin before anything could happen. The teens totally missing spiritual energy growing accordingly, but felt instead like the hollow he was fighting. He grinned, looking straight at the that very monster, "Never mind. I can see it now." He stepped forward.

The hollow was beside himself, "What the hell? What are you?"

Will was about to reply, but his next step was met was stumbling and his legs buckled slightly. His face twisted slightly in pain, "Gah!"

"Billy! What's wrong?"

The hollow laughed, "I see there was some effect after all!" a swarm of frog minions sprang from the bushes, "Let's see how you like this many of them!"

The creatures latched onto Will rather than launching their slugs. They started smoking and cried out in agony, but they weren't being absorbed fast enough to stop them from blowing up. Worse still, Will's face contorted even more. His eyes stared looking distant, a bit like when he lost it during the attack on Orihime, but it was different this time. It was filled with abject horror, "So... so much pain! SO MUCH PAIN!"

The teen fell over. That strange reaction of his had probably saved him though. The hollow stopped to enjoyed Will's struggle to hold in screams and his writhing against the dissolving frogs. "I don't know what the hell you are, but stay right there or I'll make you suffer even more."

Rukia glared at the beast, "Stop it! Let him go! You want to east my soul right? Stop hurting him and I'll let you!"

Neither of them noticed that Will's pain was accelerating the absorption or that his heavy breathing was becoming more ragged.

The hollow chuckled, "That smell of yours is so very tempting. So intoxicating to me. I love it!"

Will's expression snapped to a different kind of horror and whatever that new emotion was it snapped him back to his senses as he looked to the hollow and then to Rukia. At the time his reaction to those words made no sense to me.

"But you keep acting like you can stop me!" the creature dove at the defenseless reaper.

But Will got to his feet, the last of the minions absorbed, and grabbed the thing by the mask, stopping it in place. As he started absorbing the main hollow, Will's eyes started getting distant again, his face contorting into anger and pain instead of the resolve and pity of his previous hollow, "So much pain... you've caused so much pain!"

The hollow started screaming in agony.

"How could you? The pain... the PAIN," Will began quivering and crying, but then his face twisted again. His eyes remaining blank but his expression turning into a sadistic look of euphoric glee, "the RUSH!"

Rukia was stunned at the difference from the purification a few nights ago, "Billy?"

"Hurt... hurt... HURT!" Will demanded, nearly chuckling like a mad villain at the screams of the hollow. It was jarring. Both times the act of absorbing hollows seemed to invert him. His normally blank face filling with whatever emotions he was getting from the hollow, while his normally deep and telling eyes becoming nothingness. Suddenly though, just as swiftly as he'd started his malicious rave he pushed the hollow away several yards and his face turned back to pain, his eyes becoming expressive again. They were expressing fear, sadness, and revulsion, "NO! NO! AGHHH!" His body buckled and he started twitching as if trying to puke out the evil essence he'd taken in. It wouldn't come out though. "GET OUT! UGH! GET OUT!" The poor, poor guy started weeping so badly he was going into convulsions.

The hollow, meanwhile, was recovering, "You... you FREAK! I'll KILL YOU!" Considerably fewer minions sprang from the bushes at Will, Rukia moving to get the beleaguered teen out of the way.

Again, it wasn't needed. This time it was because I used a soul reaper movement technique called a flash step to strike all three attacking frogs down faster than anyone on the scene could see. The hollow was stunned, "What the hell? Oof!"

A familiar teen landed on the back of the hollows head and forced it to the ground. Rukia was pleased to see him, "Ichigo! We've got to kill that thing quickly."

Ichigo couldn't have not noticed Will's duress, "What's wrong with Billy?"

"He absorbed some of the hollow! It's like I feared, his body's rejecting it but he can't get it out of himself. I think you have to kill the hollow!" She slipped on a glove used to force reapers out of gigai. It was actually more commonly a tool used by the Stealth Force to more covertly catch renegade reapers. She dashed forward when the hollow roared and sprang up.

Ichigo gracefully turn what would have flung him off into momentum for a front flip and landed right in the path of the glove, his reaper form leaving his body and turning back to leap at the hollow, "No nonsense then. Straight to business!"

The hollow raged, "I see I made a big mistake. When you two split up back there I should have gone after YOU!" Lunging forward, the hollow was immediately struck down as it it were nothing, its mask cleaved straight in two. After Will had absorbed so much of its very being, there was pretty much nothing left to put up a fight. Instead of dissolving it started to twitch.

Rukia was quick to warn her partner, "Back away from it. The zanpakuto only purifies souls of sins done after death. If the person is guilty of grave sins during life it doesn't go to Soul Society."

Ichigo moved back, massive skeletal doors appearing behind the hollow, and in the next moments they opened slowly, a giant arm with a sword reaching out to impale the hollow and drag it inside, but then something not so welcome happened. Will started being dragged towards the open doors as if tied to the hollow. Thankfully, he was already puking the hollow out, his advance towards the gates slowing as the expelled goo was pulled in. It was over and everyone was safe before the two reapers could even reach him.

Rukia stated the obvious, "Well that's another unwelcome side effect."

"Obviously! What the hell was that?"

"Hell."

"Oh." Ichigo knelt down to help his friend, who was still doubled over.

Will swatted him away, clenching his stomach and breathing heavily, "Don't touch me!"

Rukia tried to calm him, "It's fine. Ichigo isn't evil so it probably won't-"

Will's expression was frantic, almost as much as when he'd been fighting the impulses of the hollow. For some reason, he was convulsing again, "Don't touch me right now... please."

"Billy what's wrong?" Ichigo called out.

Focused my spiritual senses at almost the same time that Rukia did, she noticed the same thing. The spiritual energy in the area was all being drawn towards Will, who was some how even more of a void than usual. Instead of just being not there, he was like a hole that spirit energy was pouring into. Inexplicably, it seemed like the whole mess had done something to Will's powers, or maybe it was another side effect of his power."

"Ichigo... give him a little of your spiritual pressure."

"Huh?"

"Touch him."

Struggling, Will stumbled weakly away from his friend, a terrified and confused expression on his face, "No! Don't! D-don't do it... I'm not... I'm not a hollow... I'm not..."

I recognized the condition of his body as soon as Rukia suggested giving him some energy. He was dying of exhaustion, or starvation depending on your perspective. I'd seen reapers get like that when their spiritual pressure was so used up that they were nearly dying from exhaustion. Thinking back to the morning after the mess with Orihime, Will had been really hungry. As if he'd expended a lot of spirit energy, even though he didn't have any of his own. What was happening only barely made any biological sense.

"If it will help you, stop complaining." Ichigo advanced and forcibly grabbed Will's arm, causing the hole to fill in seconds and stopping the convulsions, "I know you aren't a hollow. I know you aren't a freak. Don't let that thing get in your head."

"That's enough Ichigo. He's stable now." Rukia noted, a very serious expression on her face, but Chad had arrived, trotting up with the birdcage and a worried expression. Rukia continued in a low voice so that he couldn't hear, "We'll talk about this later."

Rattled from the utter madness of everything that had just happened, I darted off across the rooftops. Even though I had put it off, it was far past time to talk to Kisuke. It was far past time to figure out what the hell Will was.

Next Chapter: Madness

Preview: Billy tries to get over the incident with the hollow, Yoruichi consults Urahara, and Kon makes things more complicated.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Madness

A few hours after the incident with the hollow, I found Will by himself in his apartment. He was sitting in the same chair that he'd been sitting in the other night that he had faced off with a hollow, but this time he was more than just frayed at the edges. His cold expression formed a wall but his eyes, as expressive as they had always been, were windows to the soul. In them I saw the scattered thoughts and fretting of a man trying to pick up shattered pieces of himself. I'm sorry to say that I'd seen eyes like that before. Many more times than I'd like. This time hurt me deep down just as much as those times, maybe a little bit more.

I couldn't help but reflect on the short time that I'd known the teen. Looking back on it right then, Will was one of the most genuine souls I'd ever met. He could put up walls and hide the truth of course, I'd seen him do it. The little things though: the rare smile, the quip at his sparring partner, the feeding of cats, even his thinking about strategy aloud; all those things were deep, complete, and unwavering feelings that he add and shared with a sincerity I rarely encountered. So you can imagine how much it pained me to see him in distress with that same completeness.

Hopping down from the sill I trotted over to him and nuzzled my head underneath his hand, playing the role of cat because my gut told me he needed me to. He wasn't at all startled. He'd certainly felt me coming. He didn't recoil and avoid petting me like he had before out of fear of his powers. He just petted me, and let the act calm and distract him. Even though the act was entirely to make him feel better, Will moved his fingers to scratch behind my ears and on specific places of my neck, like he was a cat masseuse or something. They were places that he knew cats enjoyed. Like the previous time he had pet me, I could feel that sincerity I'd mentioned in it. He was comforting himself by making me comfortable. It made me understand all the talk I had heard about the bonds between some people and animals. There was so much conveyed in such a simple action. So much pure affection could exist in that kind of relationship.

It felt... very good. Strangely good actually. I regained enough of my senses to notice that as he kept petting me. It was noteworthy that he wasn't taking an of my spirit energy, but more profound was the other thing. Something I hadn't fully comprehended at first. This gesture was more than just a sincere act, something different was going on. It felt like we were full on communicating. It turned out that his empathic ability was not just one way after all.

Partly out of curiosity I let the feelings wash over me but kept my attention sharp, like laying in the sun and listening to the sound of birds. What I discovered was different than anything I could have expected. I could feel him... all around me. Will didn't know he was doing it, but he did want to just empty himself out and lay everything bare. It was as if every single wall into his soul was down and I was swimming through his emotions. Like a swim it was relaxing, but with that same underlying danger. It I was mindful, I could drown. Unlike a regular swim, part of me _wanted_ to drown. I mentioned before that the soul innately wants connections with others. That everyone deep down wants someone that will accept everything about them. Whatever was happening was threatening to engulf me in that...; but I also mentioned how terrifying taking a leap and exposing yourself like that can be. That strange experience, being surrounded by something you innately want to both accept _and_ reject just as completely, terrified me on a more primal level than you can probably comprehend. The fact that I was at the same time just as comfortable made it all the more terrifying an ability.

Will stopped petting me, picking up that something was weird. He looked at his hands, his telling eyes making it clear he was tying himself in knots inside. Not that I needed to look at them to know. I'd let him pet me to make him feel better, but I'd wandered into understanding him completely. Years worth of conversations would rarely let you understand a person so well. Both good and bad was that in understanding him, I was finally given some certainty. I had wondered until that moment whether he was a bane or a boon. The simple fact was that he was both. If he could learn to control his powers it could mean so many things, an equal number of them good as there were bad. Kisuke had been right.

Earlier that night I'd told Kisuke everything I'd observed of the strange boy, and he replied, "You should bring him in. Not just for tests and such. Leaving him like he is now isn't an option. Poor kid could destroy everything at this rate, even himself."

"Do you have any idea what he is?"

"A mystery."

"Don't get cute with me, Kisuke. Not right now."

"I'm not, well not completely. I've heard of things with one or two abilities like this, but some are totally new and none have them exactly like this. I'll need to take a look at him, maybe look at his soul directly."

Will speaking took me from my thoughts, "What am I? Why the hell was I born like this? Why did it have to get even worse?"

I didn't have any answers.

He kept talking, going into things I already knew from the strange flow of emotions he'd sent into me, but filled the sentiments out with the reasons that he had them, "All my life I've _known_ people. All my life I've been the only person that _knew_ people. I can't _not_ know them. Every single base impulse and emotion of everyone around me, all the time, and almost none of them understand _any_ of _all that information_. So many never even _try_. So many don't even care about it and are so caught up in themselves that everyone else might as well not even exist. To so many people everyone else is just a piece of _their_ reality." he clenched his head, "That hollow... that _hollow_... was like looking at a fragment of myself."

I had been shocked when I'd encountered this part of him in the sea of his emotions.

"In life he was a murderer. Worse than a murderer, he was pretty much a hollow when he was still alive. He didn't kill people to kill them. He pretty much feasted on their fear... gorged himself on the suffering he caused." recalling the feelings from absorbing the essence of the hollow, Will struggled not to throw up again. "Looking into people all the time, seeing so much obliviousness and apathy, I try not to let it get to me. It mostly doesn't. Sometimes though... sometimes seeing into people gets to me. Sometimes... part of me just wants to use it to crack someone into little pieces. Sometimes I just want to crack a mind apart like a coconut and drink it all." the boy looked at his hands again, "What the hell is up with that?"

Again... I really didn't have any answers to that.

He chuckled. It was the half-hearted laugh of a man with nothing left, "Then I get here and meet a bunch of good people that actually care, actually try... and things get worse. What the fuck am I? That hollow that hollow said something that bothers me as much as finding out his feasted on fear. He said that Rukia smelled good... delicious." Will laid his face in his hands, "Recently... I've been thinking the same thing about her... and Tatsuki... God what the hell am I? What human being can't tell if he wants to sleep with a girl or eat her? This power was already driving me slowly out of my mind... I don't need this! I was finally finding myself again. I was finally climbing out of that sea of other people's emotions and having my own again...," lifting his head, he stared at his hands again, "but what the hell am I?"

It was time to be a little harsh. Sometimes compassion enables sorrow, and right then comfort wasn't what Will needed, "Are you going to try and find out or are you going to keep wallowing in self-pity?"

Jarred by my suddenly talking, he turned sharply towards me, then chuckled, "You know, a cat talking doesn't really assure me of my mental state, even if I'm pretty sure you're a soul reaper."

"True," I tilted my head, "but I'm sure you of all people would know when you went insane."

"Technically one of the defining traits of a psychosis is that you aren't aware of it."

"You would notice. You know what would happen if you went crazy. You'd be far worse than that hollow." I would have given him an assuring smile with my next words, but I was still a cat, "You aren't crazy yet, and you aren't a monster yet. Monsters-"

"Don't worry about being monsters?" Will laughed again, still not positive he wasn't crazy, "Now a cat is spouting cliches at me."

"Listen, you can either sit here and go crazy; or you can trust me and let me help you figure out what you are."

"Who and/or what are you?"

"I'd normally say it isn't important, but I _am_ asking you to trust me." I hopped onto a chair and sat down, "My name is Yoruichi and I'm a ex-soul reaper. I left to help a friend of mine that was framed for some things he didn't do."

"That's sensitive info to give a guy who's friends with a substitute reaper."

"I'm asking you to trust me."

The point got across. "What do you have in mind then?"

"I'll give you an address. Whenever you're ready just show up there. My friend and I will do whatever we can to help you with this."  
He nodded, and grabbed a pencil and paper. He wrote the address down and put it into the pocket of his school uniform.

"Do you have any questions?"

He shook his head, "None that you can answer before the... whatever will happen at that address."

Nodding, I hopped onto the window, "Everything will be fine. I'll see you th-" looking over my shoulder I noticed he had a disappointed look on his face, "Something wrong?"

"Not really... but um..."

"What?"

"Don't you want your dinner first?"

My eye twitched a little, "You're still treating me like a cat?"

"Um... I'm still not clear on the whole soul-reaper cat or shape-shifting soul reaper thing."

I sighed. Of course he wouldn't be. For all he knew there could be a race of magical cats that worked as soul reapers for pets or something. "We'll talk about that later, I have somewhere I need to be."

"Alright..., but if the whole petting you thing was..."

"Don't worry about that. I said we'll talk about that later."

"Right. See ya."

I left Will to his thoughts, confident he could manage himself know that he had a bit of hope and something else to think about.

* * *

Tatsuki's Perspective, a Few Days Later

The sound of the lunch bell heralded in the usual burst of joy from Orihime, "Yeah! It's time for lunch! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Heading over with my lunchbox, I sighed a little, "Geez, Orihime, it's only lunch. It's not a big deal."

"What are you talking about, Tatsuki? Everyone know that every red-blooded high school girl only comes to school for one reason...," my friend struck a bizarre pose, "to eat her lunch."

I glanced over at Will, who for some reason missed a timing he normally would have taken to make a joke. He was barely paying any attention, wasn't making any effort to eat with anyone, and just seemed all around distracted. It wasn't the first time I'd seen him like that, but it was the first time in a long time. So I humored Orihime's antics and called over to him, "Will! If you aren't eating with anyone how about you sit with us?"

"Yeah, Markun. Eating alone is bad for the digestion!" Orihime playfully scolded.

He snapped out of his thoughts and stood up without making any sort of reply, making his way over. So of course I pressed, "Are you feeling okay? You're not still sick are you? You were absent for two whole days and now you're not acting like yourself."

My friend tried to perk up, but I could tell the smile on his face was a fake one, "I'm okay. Just shaking off the last bits of it that's all."

"Whatever you say."

Orihime pulled out a giant loaf of bread and a small tin can, "What did you guys bring for lunch? I got bread and red bean paste!"

I chuckled at her continued weird eating, "Well that sounds good," at least more normal than usual, "Sadly, my lunch is a little more ordinary."

"Look!" She pulled off a chunk and jammed some of the paste into it, "You can make your own red bean buns!"

"How nice."

A familiar red head strolled over, "Orihime, let's eat lunch together!"

Orihime was biting into the huge loaf at the time, but quickly swallowing the bite and giving the girl, Chizuru, a friendly smile. She paid no mind to the crumbs all over her face. "Sure, Chizuru."

Even I had to admit it was cute, but I was a little preoccupied noticing that Will was squirming slightly. The poor guy had never been all that good in large groups. Whenever I ate with Ichigo's group and he was there I always noticed he had a habit of clamming up in groups larger than three. Add to that his no feeling well that day and Chizuru's arrival meant we probably wouldn't hear a peep from him at all.

Chizuru grabbed Orihime and squeezed her in a far too excited hug, "Orihime, you're so cute! Taking a bite out of a huge loaf of bread and smiling with crumbs on your mouth! Hehehe!"

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ichigo appeared on the window sill, as if he'd jumped from the ground or something. Of all things he had a smile on his face and spoke in a tone a lot different from his normal one, "Excuse me, this is the ninth grade class group three right?"

Will stood up straight as if a lightning bolt had shot up his spine. Then again, that was true of most people in the class.

I shouted at the lunatic at the window, "How the hell do you get up here, Ichigo?"

"What do you mean? You saw me jump up didn't you? Pretty cool huh?" Ichigo smiled, scanning the classroom with a look that didn't match his personality at all. When he spotted Orihime, he jumped onto her desk and played Casanova, "Hey there pretty lady, how about you tell me your name?"

He kissed her hand and while the rest of the class was stunned I grabbed the jerk in a full nelson, "Ichigo! What the hell do you think you are you doing, a stupid moron? This better not be your idea of a joke!"

He twisted awkwardly in the hold to face me, "You know, up close your pretty cute too."

I blushed reflexively and he took my moment of bewilderment as an opportunity to kiss me on the check. I was caught so surprised that I let go and he turned around to face me and lay on some more flirting. I was about to smack him, but before I could Ichigo was kicked hard in the head and into the teacher's podium.

By a very hot-headed Will, "Get your mitts off Tatsuki, you perv! She's _mine_!" The crowd freaked out again, suddenly very much enjoying the show. It was then that Will realized what he had blabbed out, and slowly turned as if he knew what expression he would see on my face.

I was so embarrassed! Even muscle in my body tensed, my teeth clenched in anger. My face was probably really red from two doses of blushing and a heaping helping of fury about blushing, "What the hell did you did yell out in front of everyone?"

"T-Tatsuki, I... um... I'm still a little out of it. I didn't know what I wa-"

"YOU IDIOT!"

Will let out a really girly scream as I grabbed him and threw him through the rows of desks like we were in Dragonball Z or something. He did the smart thing and didn't get up, so I turned on Ichigo, "AND YOU!"

The pervert froze, terrified, "M-me?"

I lifted a desk over my head, "You get to die!"

"What's the big deal? I just kissed you on the cheek! You act like you're in grade school or something."

"Shut up!" I hurled the desk just as the transfer student Rukia came in, but Ichigo somehow just leaped clear over me.

Rukia shouted at him, "Hold it right there! It's over!"

Ichigo smirked, but immediately lost that expression when Will sprang from the ground and grabbed him in a modified half-nelson. The right arm was like a full nelson, the other was wrapped around the other was forcing Ichigo's left arm behind his back. If I wasn't so angry I would have noticed that his foot placement was a perfect combination of width, angle, and depth. His full body was engaged in the hold.

"I dunno what's going on or who you are, but you ain't Ichigo!"

Rukia slipped on a weird glove, "Hold him right there!"

'Ichigo' freaked out, "NO! I'm not giving it back!" Struggling, who it was that looked like my friend quickly realized he couldn't twist or kick out of the hold and instead jumped straight up, slamming Will into the ceiling.

It didn't work though, "You think that hurts? You have no idea how bad my week's been!"

Landing, the imposter sprang again, this time towards a window, one of the closed ones. Rukia cried out again, "Ichigo, back window!"

The window shattered inward and the leap was stopped before it carried them out by some unseen force. The imposter landed on his feet, but buckled slightly. Almost like the weight on him had increased, but he still jumped again when he saw Rukia running at him, "I'm not giving it back!"

The second attempt worked, and the imposter went flying out of the window. Rukia ran out the door to pursue them. Or course, I ran to the window. In the courtyard below I saw the fake running off... and Will motionless on the ground, "WILL!"

Next Chapter: Determination

Preview: Yet another incident has resulted in Will getting hurt. Next chapter Will finally heads to the Urahara Store and major hints to the secret of his powers will be revealed. Also, Tatsuki finds herself entangled in another mess with a hollow.

A/N: The rest of the episodes about Kon the mod soul will be happening normally while the next chapter's events (most of which are new non-show material) are going on. As a side note, I know Will doesn't seem to be having a huge affect on the canon events (aside from Yoruichi coming onto the scene sooner), but that will change... next chapter actually. :)


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: I really need to stop switching perspective between chapters. I apologize. One thing about uploading each chapter as I finish it is that sometimes the narrative of the next chapter requires unpredicted things like this. I was going to have the chapter start in Tatsuki's perspective, but it turned out flowing poorly so I went with starting in Yoruichi's. I'd write chapters two at a time to reduce this, but it wouldn't end occurrences of the slip ups altogether.

Chapter Seven: Determination

Right when everything started falling apart I'd been taking a break after a nice bowl of milk and a good stretch. A little nap was next on my agenda, even when Kisuke had left me in charge of the store and I had to take on my true form I planned to lounge at the counter and try my best to resist the habits from spending nearly a century in a cat body. Wearing clothes felt weird and I kept getting jarred awake by my body shifting to positions that were great for a cat, but not so much designed for humans. A peaceful day wasn't in the forecast sadly. The moment I'd finally settled into the chair there was a banging on the door.

"Come in, it's not locked."

The door slid open only part way, then I heard a pained gasp as it was pulled the rest of the way. My eyes darted over to see Will stumble into the room and nearly collapse on a wall. His breathing was heavy and his left arm was hanging limply at his side. It was clear that he was in a lot of pain. Even more troublesome was the girl that came in after him, trying to help him but unsure of what to do. It was Tatsuki, his sparring partner from his school.

"Can we get some help here?" She was as angry as she was worried, "Will, why in the hell did you insist on coming to a candy store?"

I stood and quickly went to Will's side, "Hold on, I'll help you to the back. What happened?"

Tatsuki answered, Will was too busy looking surprised to see me, which was understandable since he'd never seen me outside of my cat form, "I'm not sure. Some weirdo that looks like my friend Ichigo started harassing the class. There was a fight, and Will fell out of the window. Who are you anyway? You don't look like a doctor."

"Yoruichi." Will said in a near groan, "Sorry, I couldn't shake her."

I admit to being more than a little shocked that he knew it was me, but it was easy to get past given the situation. I got beneath the teen's good arm to help him walk, "Don't worry about it."

Tatsuki wasn't going to ignore that, "What kind of place is this that he needs to lose me before coming?"

"Calm down and let me treat his wounds first." I ordered firmly. "Lock the front door." She didn't like it, but Tatsuki obeyed anyway. It only took me a few moments to get Will into the back room and I immediately started checking all his extremities for breaks, making sure to do the bad arm last, even after checking his back.

"Agh!" which revealed a complication.

Before Tatsuki said anything, I explained, "Broken shoulder blade." pressing another area Will gritted his teeth to keep from yelling, "Dislocated shoulder too. He must have hit the ground there first before the impact spread out. It's bad, but he took the fall better than most would."

"He was trying to keep a hold of the imposter when the guy jumped out the window."

Will spoke through the pain, "We have to help Ichigo."

I grabbed his injured arm firmly but precisely, "Not with you in this condition." I gently tried to find the right angle to force the shoulder back in without making the injuries worse.

"Ow..., I have to- AGH!" he tied to argue just as I forced the shoulder back in.

"You don't have to do anything. Stay still while I wrap this up and treat these cuts." I motioned to the closet, "Tatsuki, grab the black bag out of there."

"You know my name?"

I ignored her, going back to Will. "Do you care about this shirt? Cutting it off would be a lot less painful than pull it off."

"Don't take it off."

Tatsuki went ahead to the closet, "This isn't the time to be bashful."

Will waited a moment for Tatsuki to cross the room to the closet, then whispered, "Don't touch my bare skin."

I kept my voice low, "I know about that. I have plenty of spiritual energy and it will do you good to-"

He shook his head, "You... er... '_smell' really good_... If you get what I mean."

I did... the other night he had mentioned Rukia and Tatsuki smelling good, in the same way hollows found certain souls to smell delicious. He wasn't sure if it was the same hunger or an innate attraction to their personalities. My spiritual energy was totally concealed in my cat form, but now that I was not in that form anymore... he could 'smell' me and I had an equally attractive scent. It would be flattering if there wasn't the whole 'delicious' part.

"We'll manage."

Taking hold of the bag from Tatsuki a moment later, I slipped on some medical gloves and hoped the thin layer of latex would protect me from his power. I cut his uniform shirt off and took a look at the inured area. It was already bruising. I glanced at Tatsuki, who was looking uncharacteristically bashful. I took a moment to check Will's shirtless form to see what provoked that, and was not disappointed. He wasn't in immaculate shape, but he was more muscular than he seemed at a casual glance and enough to make a naive teenage girl go red. He muscles were toned for _use_, not super-modeling. An expert eye noting that it was hardened by actual combat. Despite his personality not matching it, Will had obviously seen a good number of street fights.

I moved on with the treatment, getting glass shards out of the cuts where I needed to wrap and disinfecting them. Next was the tricky part, "This will hurt." I touched the areas of broken shoulder blade and carefully moved them back where they were supposed to be. Of course Will had to try not to cry out in pain, but he took it like a trooper considering, "Tatsuki, put this glove on and put pressure here in this exact spot, not much, just enough to shove someone. I need to make sure the pieces don't move around but can still move a little to heal back together."

"Got it."

A couple minutes later the shoulder was tightly wrapped and his arm in a sling, so I moved back to treating cuts. "Good girl. That's perfect."

"Can you explain what the hell is happening now? I mean, there's an imposter Ichigo out there and you two are acting like it's totally normal for that kinda of thing to happen. Plus I can't help but get the impression that you've seen a lot of injuries...,"

"Yoruichi. Yoruichi Shihoin."

"Okay, I'd introduce myself, but you already know it."

I nodded, "I know a bit about you. As far as what's going on, it's probably better that you don't know."

"I'm not accepting that kind of answer."

"You wouldn't believe the honest kind." Will stated plainly.

"I just saw a perverted clone of a friend of mine make superhuman jumps and try to kill another friend of mine, who goes to a candy store instead of a hospital. It gets weirder than that?"

Will laughed, "My god, what has my life become when that sounds as normal as a cup of coffee in the morning?"

I looked at Tatsuki seriously, "You have no idea. If you won't leave it be I'll let Will decide how to explain things. I need to talk to him privately first though."

"Get your stories straight?"

"Yes, but not as sinister as you might believe." I said plainly, hoping my bluntness would convince her that I wasn't lying to her, "This involves a personal matter and Will lacks some information on it. I just want to fill him in first. How much he wants to tell you isn't really my place."

"Alright I guess."

I continued to be blunt, "I should let you know both know though, when I said it's better not knowing, I didn't mean this conversation was a one way street."

Will tensed, "Yeah, I know, but I don't know how I feel about doing that."

"What are you talking about?"

I looked to the girl, "If you decide that you don't like what you find out, there's a decide that can erase it from your mind."

"W-what? You're talking about editing my mind here. That's-"

"As crazy as the rest of the day has been?" I went back to the wounds.

Tatsuki swallowed hard, "You have a point, but I don't like the idea of your playing around with my memories."

"I just wanted to make sure that you knew it was an option. I don't plan on doing it unless you want me to."

"Isn't that risky? What is I blab about this dangerous stuff to the world?"

"Will trusts you," I applied the bluntness again, "And I trust him. Just give us a few minutes of privacy and you two can have at it."

Tatsuki was hesitant, but in the end decided it was reasonable, "Fine. I'll be right outside."

"Don't eavesdrop." Will stated coldly. There was no hostility in his voice, but I knew him well enough to catch the fatigue in it, "I know you well enough to know you are going to, but I'm asking you to trust me and not. Please. I'm not concealing anything from you. I just want to tell it to you myself and on my terms. Got it?"

Tatsuki was only a little jarred that her intentions were caught, but nodded, "Okay, but you've got me really worried now."

"I'll try to not keep you waiting too long."

Tatsuki nodded again and stepped out.

After a moment to give her time to get away from the door, Will got to the point, "What was that thing impersonating Ichigo?"

"Apparently Rukia bought something called Soul Candy earlier today, it's a small sphere that looks like a piece of candy that let's a soul reaper get out of their gigai quickly and puts a fake soul in it to keep it safe."

"And she got a defective one?"

"One of Kisuke's helpers accidentally gave her a discontinued item called a mod soul, which was an experiment in making artificial soldiers to help fight hollows. The process was deemed unethical and all the mod souls were shelved."

"I see."

"You don't need to worry, it's under control." I said, and Will seemed to relax. With that out of the way, I moved on, "How have you been the last two days? I know you needed space and time to think, so..."

"How do you think I am?" he let out a tired laugh, "How can anyone expect a person to deal with this kind of thing? I don't know how I expect Tatsuki to."

"You mentioned you get the same sense from all three of us, but you never really clarified what it is."

"Ha... Honestly, I'd rather not."

"She's not by the door. I'd be able to tell."

He shook his head, "That's only part of the reason. It was awkward enough admitting to you that I was getting the feeling from you. Now you expect me to describe how intensely I want to... er..."

"Eat me and sleep with me?"

He blushed hard, "God! That's so embarrassing."

I chuckled, "Don't worry about it. I'm not some delicate little girl. I'm well over ten times your age." I placed my gloved palm on his bare shoulder, "Just to make sure of something, are you getting any of my spiritual energy right now?"

He paused to make sure, as if trying to hear something, "No, but I'm still getting emotions from you. It's clearer now since you're in that form," he continued with an explanation, figuring I'd want details, "Partly because you have humanoid body language now. Some of my ability to get in people's heads is reading their body language."

Learning to read body language would probably be easy with insight into their emotions, and it made sense that adding more input to a sense would make it stronger.

"Since you are probably wondering, no I'm not telepathic." he paused for only a beat, long enough for me to have a thought. In fact he timed it eerily to the exact time that the thought in response to his statement entered my mind, "Proven by the fact that you weren't actually actively wondering that." another pause, as if he were taking in information from me, "That might seem like telepathy right there, but it was deducing what you were thinking based entirely on body language and emotional impulses."

"So you can figure out what I'm thinking by what I'm feeling and how I'm acting?"

He nodded, "It's not perfect. There's the weak points you'd imagine, then there's the bigger one you might not expect: because I can't shut it off, other people's emotions are always in my head. Sometimes, with certain emotions especially, it can be tricky telling where mine end and theirs begin."

That explained the knots in the emotions he'd involuntarily sent me days before. It also made the incident with the last hollow more horrifying. I'd assumed there was at least some barrier between the psychopathic spirit and his own mind. "That's-"

"Situationally terrible beyond imagination?"

"Yeah." That was one way, a very fitting way, to put it.

He cut me off before I posed my next question, "You're wondering what emotions I'm getting from you right now. There's a problem with that though. You're emotions are always dictated by the moment." another pause for information, it wasn't even a full second, "You're disappointed know because you figured out what I meant: I can't get anything but curiosity if you are only experiencing that kind of emotion."

"Ah. We'll change topics then. Back to the 'smelling good' thing." I busied myself getting the rest of the cuts treated, getting some flinches from the teen.

"Before that, something changed in your feelings about me, quite abruptly when I petted you that night. I can't make any sense of it."

"I _figured_ that was involuntary."

"What?"

I leaned around and looked him in the eyes, "Interesting new part of your power that we should look into: you can send your own emotions through touch."

He went a little red, "Am I doing it right now?"

I smiled, "No, I think you would have noticed more attitude changes if you'd done it since then. You probably need to be feeling something very intensely. Now, about that 'smelling good' thing you just got embarrassed about."

He sighed, then cleared his head, "Okay, okay. So I'm attracted to you on multiple levels, nothing to be embarrassed about. I'll just get over my bashfulness. This is important." he breathed in deeply, then paused as if it was a big mistake, "Why does that even come across as smell? My empathy has always been more of a ranged tactile kind of feeling."

I just shrugged. I did note the 'tactile' thing though.

"Anyway, for some reason... well it's pretty much been said, 'you smell really good'. It floods my empathic ability with a ton of information, so much that I can't process every bit of it. It makes me really want your spiritual energy... and... er... you." he blushed again. "I get the same thing from only the two other people I mentioned. Nobody else. Oh, and don't take this any of the wrong ways, but it's strongest with you."

"What about the others? Where they scale could tell us something."

"Least strong is Rukia, but that might be because she lost nearly all her spiritual energy."

"Tatsuki's is around the same level though." I noticed him glance at the door, "She's still not near the door."

"Good."

"Anyway, it might be stronger with Tatsuki because you only recently met Rukia."

"And you have a lot more spiritual energy than them."

"Plus I'm a lot sexier." I joked.

He cleared his throat awkwardly and blushed. It was kinda adorable. It was also nice to see his innocence hadn't been totally shattered by recent events.

I moved on, "How intense is the desire? You told me not to touch you directly. Are you afraid you might try to eat me?"

"Y-yeah." it was also obvious he was worried he might lose control over the other feeling it gave him.

I chuckled again at his awkwardness, it was so unlike his normal attitude, "You might want to leave this little bit out when you tell her. I don't think she will be as understanding about primal sexual urges."

He went even redder, "God! Why does it even do that? That's so freakin' messed up!"

"Ha-ha-ha! Relax. Just take a clinical look at it. We have similar personalities from what I know about the other girls. Your powers, including draining spiritual energy, all seem based around empathy."

"So what you're saying is... I have a preference in flavor?"

"Probably."

"God, that sounds like a mediocre vampire romance series."

"Don't worry, you aren't a vampire. Well, not the kind we know about at least."

He turned to face me with surprise, "There's vampires too?"

"Far as we know, they went extinct. You're power is kinda similar, but only vaguely. Your power is vaguely similar to a lot of things actually. Which makes you hard to classify." I finished with the last of the many cuts, "There we go. All done with the treatment." I moved around to check the wound where the first hollow had stabbed him, "How's this one doing?"

"Healing up pretty well, but it was reopened in the last fight."

"I'll go ahead and change the bandage for you."

Putting aside his angst, Will smiled, "Thanks."

"It's nothing. I treated my share of wounds back when I was a soul reaper. Healing magic only does so much. In your case it doesn't even work."

"Not just for this... for-"

"I know." I smiled, "Don't worry about that either. Your powers are scary, and trust me that's a lot coming from me, but you're not. Your powers don't make you who you are, your choices and attitude do."

"Thanks."

"You said that already." I teased.

There was an odd sensation in the air, and suddenly the cuts on Will's body started to close, and even though it was only a little, I felt the spiritual energy around him, go down. My own was barely changing at all, but I could feel that he was draining me... and I wasn't even touching him at all. When Will noticed, he panicked a bit and moved away from me, accidentally moving his shoulder in his haste. The draining had already stopped though, the instant he noticed it in fact.

I moved back to him to check his wounds. Only the small ones had healed, but they were all gone, "Are you okay?"

He swatted me away, but kept his voice low, "Don't touch me!"

"Relax, you aren't doing it anymore, and you barely affect me at all."

"Still."

"Will, you need to get a grip and understand a few things if you are ever going to learn to control this." moving slightly behind him, I started taking my gloves off where he couldn't see, "First is the whole 'your power doesn't make you who you are' bit."

"Second?" suspicious, he started to turn around.

I placed my bare hand on his bare shoulder, keeping stiff control over my spiritual energy so he would not drain it too quickly, "I'm not afraid of you."

I'll admit, even though I was holding his power back, I could still feel it. When the power 'got a taste' of my spiritual energy, the pull became ravenous. If I wasn't so practiced in controlling my spiritual pressure, my gesture could have been a huge mistake. In the split second before Will freaked out and broke contact, I could feel many of the same emotions from him as the previous night, but with an overpowering desire to be accepted. It was so intense and consuming that I can't describe the amount of fear and loneliness. It was so deeply entrenched in him that it subdued the dark compulsions in him. The ones that hungered to gain this acceptance by making everything that I was a part of him, to consume my everything. It was that part that made the drain so bestial, but before he broke contact I could feel the other part reigning it in. The part of him that wanted to be accepted and empathized with the suffering of others was much stronger than the beast that wanted to force it and devour.

Even after contact was broken, the experience was so intense that it took me a little while to regain my composure. For a few moments, looking into Will's terrified and regretful eyes, I could still feel him... for a moment I was still in his head. The intensity of those feelings forced me to fight back tears. I'll also admit having to fight a maternal urge to hug his pain away, but that's a female thing.

Will misunderstood my reaction. "I'm sorry. I can't control this yet. I warned you not to-"

"It's fine. I knew the risk." I cleared my throat and regained my sense of self, "It needed to be done. I have a lot more control over my energy than the others. If you had accidentally touched them without knowing what would happen-"

"I might have killed them..."

"I doubt that. Really I do; but you would have hurt them."

"Dammit."

"On the bright side I understand you a little bit more now." I stood up, walked over to him and knelt down close, "I'm still not scared of you, and I'm going to keep helping you."

He was surprised, which is saying a lot considering his ability. It made another weakness in his power obvious: If he couldn't understand or believe an emotion, he couldn't make any use of it.

I smiled, "I'll send Tatsuki in in a few minutes, get your composure back."

"O-okay."

Getting back up, I moved towards the door, "Later I'll start helping you train this power of yours."

He simply nodded, a little worried. For me of course.

* * *

Tatsuki's Perspective

The woman that called herself Yoruichi came out of the back room after what seemed like forever. She said nothing and went over to a shelf on the back wall, pulling something out of a box.

Since she wasn't going to start, I did, "So what's happening? Should I go in there for an explanation now?"

She stood and gave me a serious look, "In a few minutes. Before you go in, I need to talk to you."

"Go ahead then."

"First of all, catch." the woman tossed something at me.

It was a weird little thing that looked sort of like a PEZ dispenser, "What's this?"

"The device I mentioned that removes specific memories. If you use that all the weird stuff will be replaced by different memories."

"I told you I'm not-"

"I'm just giving you the option." Yoruichi cut me off, "If you can't accept what you hear, there you go."

"You keep making me more and more worried."

By the look on her face, it was obvious she didn't care how I felt, "I don't know all that much about you, but I do know that you're important to Will."

"Who are you to him?"

For some reason she smirked, I didn't notice at the time that she thought I was acting jealous. Maybe I was. I know I didn't like my friend having incredibly beautiful women around that I didn't know about. That could easily just be my protective personality, "I'm a close friend that knows him very well. I'm also just as protective of him as you seem to be."

"Are you?"

"Yes; but despite that I'm still giving that to you and letting you hear him out instead of taking the easy route and using it right now. That's because I have respect for him too."

I could tell she was being honest, so I relaxed a little, but not much, "Could you give me some clue about what I'm walking into then? You're making me more and more worried."

She shook her head, "Not about most of what he's going to say. Like I said, that's not my place. I'll give you a primer though, but don't start with stuff like 'Bullshit!' or 'Do you expect me to believe all that?'. As crazy as this stuff is going to sound, I am telling you the truth."

"Alright. Shoot."

She took a seat and motioned for me to sit in a stool nearby, so I did. She got started then, "I'll put this in the most easy to accept terms. First, there is an afterlife, and ghosts are real."

"Okay, not so hard to accept."

"Those myths about death gods, grim reapers, and the rest? Also true."

"Alright. Getting weirder, but still-"

She stopped wasting time, "It's the reapers' job to help the pure souls pass on and purify the corrupted ones, which are called hollows. Ones that became corrupt after death are cleaned of their sins and sent to a place of relative peace called Soul Society. The ones that were evil in life go to hell. Recently, Will got tangled up in this business."

"If I accept all that, then what's going on with Ichigo? An evil spirit?"

"Ah, I nearly forgot that. Ichigo became a reaper recently. He used a device to activate his powers, which requires he eject his soul from his body, and long story short it was defective. It's under control now, but an artificial soul was inside his body and rebelled."

That... that was the weirdest bit yet. "You were right, I really want to say 'Do you expect me to believe all that?'"

"I'll give you a good smack if you do."

I couldn't really tell how serious she was about that. "Fine, so what? Is Will a reaper too? Are you?"

"I'm... retired. Will... he's... going to explain that to you."

I sighed, "I'm worried again."

"So am I."

I gave her a confused look.

"If you hear what he has to say, you might not be able to accept it."

"Is it that bad?"

"You'll find out." Yoruichi went over to the door and knocked on it, sliding it open a bit, "You ready.?"

I heard Billy reply, "Yeah."

She opened the door the rest of the way and turned to me, "Then walk her home while you talk, then come back right after. Kisuke will want to talk to you." the woman looked to Will for a moment before walking away from the door, "I gave her a primer on soul reapers, hollows, and what happened this morning, so you can skip that."

He nodded and I followed him out.

I didn't wait long before starting the conversation, "So... just get straight to it then, I'll at my wits end already. She said I might not be able to accept something?"

"Um..."

"Come on, out with it."

"I just not sure how to word it." he sighed, "She told you about soul reapers and hollows... I'm not either of those, but I'm apparently not human either."

"What? Not human?"

"Not completely." he struggled for words, "Listen... my entire life I've been able to read the emotions of people around me and feel the emotions of ghosts. It's hard to explain exactly what it's like, but it's kinda like having another sense of touch, but without touching anything and more complex."

"Well... that's not as world-ending as I thought it was going to be."

"I'm not done."

I resumed worrying.

"Recently it got stronger. I started being able to absorb the essence of souls I touch. I take the spiritual power of reapers and hollows. This heals reapers, purifies hollows, and makes me stronger. Though it has some side effects."

"Like what?"

"I apparently do this by taking suffering into myself. I get the injuries I heal and whatever anguish created the corruption in the hollow becomes a part of me until the spirit is sent to the afterlife."

"That's... crazy... and sounds horrible."

"I know." he took a deep breath to sigh, then his expression changed sharply and he turned away from me.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing..." he was obviously lying, "It's just... side effects."

I puzzled over what he could be hiding. "Be honest with me, Will. I get the feeling that this is the part that is hard to accept."

He hanged his head, "Let's just say I'm a bit like a vampire now."

The pieces fell into place and I stood up, ready to sock him one, "I smell like a meal to you?"

"I can't help it." Will insisted, "I'd never try and eat you, honest."

"Geez! I _know_ that; but it doesn't make it any more appealing."

"I'm going to be training myself to control it with some help from Yoruichi and her friend, but until I get a grip on it... I think I should stay away from you as much as possible."

"What are you saying? Didn't you just say you'd never try to eat me?"

"I'd rather not risk it."

"I think I deserve some say in this."

Will ignored me, "Just keep an eye out and be careful. You have to worry about more things than me not hanging around you."

"What do y-"

"You and Orihime have high spiritual energy. It makes you an appealing meal to more than just me. Hollows might come after you again."

"Again?"

Will stopped, "Oh... right. She must have not mentioned that. A hollow came after you and Orihime a few nights ago. Ichigo and I protected you."

"I don't remem-" the obvious occurred to me, "You erased our memories... that's why that night made even less sense than my usual visits."

"It wasn't me, I was out cold at the time. Apparently it's standard reaper procedure."

"Ichigo then?"

"Rukia I think."

"Wait... the exchange student's a soul reaper too?"

He nodded.

"God... this is a lot to handle."

"Sorry."

I sighed, "It's not your fault. Don't worry about it."

"Still... are you going to be okay with all this?"

I thought everything – including the way out in my pocket – for several seconds, but "I don't know. I need to sleep on it." I thought some more, "Not like I have a lot of choice anyway. If I forget all this I can't protect Orihime."

"If you erased your memories I'd just go ahead and stay close and make sure I protected you. Ichigo's got an eye out too. We'd make sure both of you weren't in any danger."

I honestly couldn't think of a reply to that. There was a lot to think about. I could either live knowing that I was in constant danger and gave a close friend cravings for my soul, or I could just continue being blissfully unaware. It was a harder choice than I'd like to admit. The fact that I was thinking about running away from something sickened me.

It was a moment later that noticed Will wasn't next to me anymore. When I turned to find him I saw that every muscle in his body was tensed and his eyes were wide open in fear. I started to move closer, "What is it? What's wrong?" A familiar bad feeling suddenly came over me.

"A hollow..."

Next Chapter: Acceptance

Preview: Will and Tatsuki square off against a hollow, Tatsuki sees the full depths of his condition, and she makes her decision. After all is said and done, things change when a member of a race thought extinct appears to challenge our heroes. We also learn what happened during the talk Rukia, Ichigo, and Will had after the incident with the last hollow (which hasn't bee revealed yet). Will will find acceptance? Or will the coming chaos make him give into the monster inside?


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: This story has brought me a few new experiences as a writer. One was writing without having the main character and focus of the story as the narrator. Now in this chapter I write a fight scene with an enemy the narrator cannot see and the main character kinda has a flashback that he doesn't narrate. It was interesting from my side of things.

Chapter 8: Acceptance

"A hollow? What the hell kind of timing is that? You just said something about it!"

Will sighed, "I just have really bad luck today I guess." Turning east he gestured down the road the opposite way, "It just appeared in this world, but I don't think it noticed us yet. Get going, I'll take care of it."

"With a broken shoulder?"

"I don't give off any aura, it can't detect me without directly looking at me or hearing me. I can get the jump on it. Once I get my hands on it there's a good chance it will be totally defenseless."

"Are you nuts? All it has to do is turn your direction before you get to it and then _your_ helpless. I'll come with you."

He shook his head, "You won't even be able to see it."

At the time, I didn't know that he normally couldn't see them either. If I had, I would have called him out on it, "That doesn't mean I can't distract it. I'll play it smart and-"

"No."

"I'm helping whether you want me to or not. You'd think Mr. Empath would know that already."

Will grumbled, "That's not how empathy works, but fine. Just keep low and behind big things. Avoid easy to flip vehicles if there are any. These things are normally pretty large and strong. You wouldn't want to get compacted by a compact car."

"That was a terrible joke."

"I know, let's go. When we get closer to it we split up and flank it."

"Right. Just let me know when."

He jogged down the street and I followed, I could sense it vaguely, and knew we were going the right direction, but I might as well have been going in the fight completely blind. It was stupid, I know; but there was know way I was going to let one of my closest friends go into a fight with anything, especially a monster, alone.

"It sensed us," Will gritted his teeth and pointed to an alley, "and it's closing fast. Get to cover."

I listened, booking it into the alley and hiding. I made sure to stick very low and close to the wall. Even if it came through the wall I was at, something large would pass over me and the rubble wouldn't get me directly. I glanced over to the other side, and Will was already hidden. I didn't know where he was, and that meant neither would the hollow. Which I couldn't see... An invisible enemy wasn't going to stop me though, I'd just have to follow my instincts.

Six craters about the diameter of a saucer appeared in the ground right in the middle of the street and the ground shook. Something big and bug-like had landed and from the new craters forming after that and the rumbling, I could guess that it was looking around. I focused on the way the craters formed and tried to figure out which way it was facing. It only took a moment, but a moment later it became clear for another reason. I spotted Will, and he had a confused expression on his face. Then I could tell the thing turned to look right at him. For some reason it had sensed Will and not me.

Will shouted, "Why the hell can I already see it?"

I had no time to compute what he meant, because he was forced to dodge a strike that left a series of five gashes in the building next to him. The dodge was incredibly fast, Will was nearly twenty feet from where he started in the time it would take to make one step. I was amazed.

Will was too. "What the?"

Something seemed to occur to him, but I didn't have the chance to ask what it was. My friend hopped up and put up an defense to reduce the impact of the hollow's next attack, which still sent him flying. I felt a vibration in the air, and a feeling in my gut told me that for some reason the hollow had cried out in pain. Will meanwhile had rolled with the landing, grabbing his bad shoulder once he had his footing back.

He spoke though the pain, "It touched my arm. Touching me burns them." he doubled over slightly. The hollow started throwing a tantrum.

"What's wrong? Is it your shoulder?"

"No..." he had a small spasm as he tried to speak, "Ugh... it's another bad one. These are not fun at all. You need to run. You really need to run."

"I'm not leaving you. You're clearly not going to be able to do this alone."

"Then when I rush him count to one, then run forward, kick right at that parking meter and then evade back and right immediately."

"Okay."

"_Right after_ the kick, move as fast as you can out of the way. No delay, _Back and right_."

"Got it. Kick meter, get the hell out of the way."

Will started taking off his shirt, it took me a second to figure out that he was trying to maximize the use of his power by exposing more skin to the thing. "And the next time I say run, I _really really_ mean it. Okay?"

"I-"

"No arguing. When I tell you to run, you_ really_ should run. _Really_. Understood? No stubbornness or staying to help. The next run means _run_."

"Fine."

There was the feeling of another yell from the hollow and Will shouted right back, "Come at me then!"

The thing rumbled forward, leaving dents in the ground as it came. Will rushed it with another display of impossible quickness, I counted to one and followed, doing a jump kick aimed at the meter so that when I hit something, I was able to turn it into a back flip. Pretty much the instant I was clear, five long gashes appeared in the ground. My attack hadn't been enough though. There was no give at all from the impact. I looked around to see where Will was and saw him not far from the gashes, his arms and legs wrapped around something the width of a light post. The air vibrated again as the creature was in pain.

"I'm on the left hand. It's like a bug centaur." Will yelled, his voice labored. The creature lifted him into the air, at a certain point, "Head level was right there. Ugh... right at when I said head."

I checked to see where it's feet were, where the hand Will was on was, and put all the information together to imagine where every part of the creature was. I moved in to kick harder at where I thought the leg was, this time the strike sank in ever so slightly, so I went again. The second kick missed so I followed my gut and evaded backwards and to the side of the thing, getting out of the attack arc and getting some distance to aim again.

Will was slammed into a storefront window, then into the wall next to it as the creature kept screaming soundlessly in pain. I charged in again, "Let him go, you ugly bastard!"

I went with a spinning side kick, throwing every bit of force I could muster into where I assumed was the side of a knee. It buckled a little, then felt like I shattered something shell-like, and a cold, gooey feeling flowed over my leg. I backed off, but slipped on what must have been bug goo or something.

When I looked up, Will was rocketing down at me too fast for me to dodge. The hollow was going to hit me with my friend! I only had time to process my fate when suddenly Will's course changed and he feel beside me instead.

"Ugh, this is why I hate using gigai. They are so slow." I glanced over and spotted a man in a strange hat standing a few yards away looking annoyed. Had he done that? I hadn't even seen him get there, much less attack the thing. I blinked and he was on the other side of the street, standing as if he'd always been there. "I step away for a few hours and you hollows forget about me. That makes me sad."

Beside me, Will started having spasms again, like he was trying to throw up. His face was twisted into a nightmarish look of sheer terror and pain, but it was like his face was trying to forcibly change to a different expression.

"Will, what's wrong? What's happening?"

"Can't... can't get it out. Can't..." his face wrenched as if every muscle in it were fighting against the horrifying smile that came over it for a moment before tears started following out hie eyes and he fought it back to agony, "R-RUN!"

"Will, wh-"

The smile came again... it was a look of twisted delight that made no sense. His face strained against it, like he was fighting emotions that weren't his with every fiber of his being, "RUN!"

I couldn't move... that expression... the pain it was causing him... I couldn't move. I could only stare at it in horror.

Will lunged at me, grabbing me not by the throat but by the jaw. He might as well have been choking me though because somehow it still felt like he was killing me. His face, against his will, was relishing in it, "I can't stop... you smell so wonderful!"

"What the," I struggled to speak, "Will, stop! Y-you're hurting me!"

He was grabbing me so tightly that I thought my jaw was going to snap, so tight I could feel his muscles twitching as if fighting against the action they were taking.

"Fight it! Please! Please don't kill me. Please!"

With a primal bellow, Will dropped me. His arm started turning purple, bruising. Bruises were forming all over his body as he yelled in anger and agony. He was fighting whatever was trying to control him so hard... it was ripping him apart.

"WILL! MY GOD WILL!" I screamed.

With a final cry, my tortured friend fell over and started dry-heaving. He kept throwing up nothing until his lost consciousness. I just sat there, tears streaming from my face... I couldn't even make myself run over to him. The strange-looking man went over to his side and checked on him.

I barely managed to speak, "What... what just happened?"

"This must be Will." he turned to me, "That right there, little miss, was what happens when he tries to purify a hollow that was evil in life. That is the reason-"

* * *

Rukia's Perspective, the Day Before

"You have no business fighting hollows. You're powers are a liability." I stated point blank.

"Rukia!" Ichigo protested, "He-"

"Broke down in the middle of a fight? Nearly lost his mind?"

Ichigo had no reply for that. Billy didn't say anything. Honestly I was surprised he was in as good a mental shape as he was, but the teen was obviously still shaken. The three of us were sitting in his room like we had been not that many hours ago, but a lot of things had changed.

"Now that we know that is what will happen when he touches the large majority of hollows, we can't risk putting him in any more danger. Imagine if he had absorbed even more of that thing?"

Ichigo frowned, "I know that. Still, you don't have to put it like that."

"How do you want me to put it? There's no other way to say it."

"It's fine." Billy finally spoke up, "She's right. Right now I'm a liability."

"Billy-" Ichigo wanted to reassure his friend, but there was no words for the situation.

"I said it's fine. I'm worse than useless against ones like that. Even though I weakened it, if it had been any stronger you'd have had to protect me and Rukia for the rest of the battle. If I don't learn to control this, block out the hollow's evil or something, I could get us all killed."

"What you did for Sora was-"

"I don't even remember doing that, but you're right." Billy turned to me, "Can I at least help you track them down? If it's a good one I could still help and it would be good practice."

"We don't need help tracking them normally, and Ichigo can purify them using his sword. Your power doesn't serve enough purpose to risk your safety."

I could tell I should have worded that differently, calling something that caused him so much suffering useless wasn't the most sensitive thing I've ever done. "Fine. I see your point. I'll help keep an eye out and tell you if I sense anything. An extra set of eyes never hurt." he stood up, "I'll see you guys at school."

Ichigo called out to him, "Billy... I..."

"I said it's fine." Billy put on a weak smile, "I'll be okay. The simple life suits me a lot better anyway."

With that, he left the room and shut the door behind him. Ichigo wasn't at all happy, "Rukia, that last bit was out of line."

"I know. I regret saying it."

"I don't really think you get it." Ichigo pressed, "I understand how much that must've hurt. Every day of his life he's dealt with everyone else's emotions. The entire time living in fear that his powers would be discovered and people would start treating him like a freak. You can't have any idea what living like that is like! Then you go and call his ability useless?"

"I... didn't think of it like that." I replied, honestly kicking myself mentally for how inconsiderate I'd been. "I'll go apologize."

"Good. He probably took 8th Street, you can catch him there."

Hopping out of the window into the light of early morning, I made my way down the street. It was a Sunday so most of the streets were empty. Either people were downtown, sleeping in, or at church. Finding the right road was simple, but Billy was as hard to find as ever.

"Rukia?"

I jumped a little and turned around. I'd somehow managed to go right by him, "You have to stop doing that."

"I was standing out in the open! You walked right by me!"

I sighed, "I'm too used to sensing people spiritual presence before I see them."

Billy laughed half-heartedly, "So, what's up? You forget to mention something?"

"I came to apologize, I didn't mean to call your ability useless. I should have considered your feelings."

He genuinely smiled. It was as jarring as it normally was too. His face was normally so neutral, and his eyes so expressive, that every facial expression came across as much more intense. "Thanks. I appreciate it. Normally I wouldn't be bothered at all honestly, but after having that hollow in my head... I mean, he enjoyed killing people _so much_. How can someone like that even exist?"

"Would you like to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"I'd like to talk with you about whatever is on your mind. If I'm going to give Soul Society a report that will keep them from thinking your some kind of threat, I need to get to know you better."

He suddenly seemed down, but I wasn't sure why, "Not today. Some other time. If they show up and want to think I'm a monster, then so be it. I just want to sleep this whole incident off and move on to the next bit of nonsense."

"I see. Just let me know if you change your mind."

Billy nodded and walked away.

* * *

Yoruichi's Perspective, the Present Time

An hour after the hollow attack I came out of the back room and handed the medical kit to Kisuke, "Here you go. I got done treating his wounds and took the blood samples you wanted. They're in the bag."  
Kisuke gave the bag a peculiar look, "_This_ bag?"

"Yeah... what other bag did I just hand you?" I pointed at it, "That liquid stuff works wonders. I thought it was antiseptic and the healing was from my spirit energy, but it turns out all absorbing my energy does is make him appeal to hollows."

Kisuke took a vial out of the bag with the fluid in it, "You used this on the wounds?"

"Yeah. It's labeled 'For cuts'. Is something the matter?"

My friend shook his head, "No. I'm just surprised it worked on him. Give him the rest in case his gets hurt again. I only have that vial though until I get more delivered so use it sparingly. Also it reacts to the spirit energy of reapers, so if he doesn't have any he'll need a reaper to apply it."

"Alright. I'll give it to him and let him know." I looked around, "Where's the girl?"

"I had Tessai escort her home." he got a depressed look on his face thinking about it. "She was so shaken up after seeing him like that."

"I don't blame her."

He sighed, "Yoruichi..."

I knew him well enough to know what he was going to say. Glancing into the room where Will was sleeping, I had no idea how I was going to break it to him. It was going to destroy the poor guy. "She used the memory modifier didn't she?"

Kisuke nodded, "She couldn't handle it."

"Dammit..."

Next Chapter: Redemption

A/N: I know I said Uryu was going to appear this chapter, but it ended up not working out that way. Anyway, next chapter Will keeps trying to deal with the crap going on, gets to know Rukia a little better, and Uryu will likely make his entrance. Also, Kisuke seems to have discovered something about Will, but hasn't said what. What will his tests uncover? More on that later. ON a final note, I'm going to unify what people call the main character, as having different people calling him different things is troublesome. Orihime will still call him Markun, but which name (Will or Billy) do you guys prefer?


End file.
